


No Part of Me

by wargoddess



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arranged Marriage, F/F, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-22
Updated: 2013-11-20
Packaged: 2017-12-20 23:20:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 33,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/893085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wargoddess/pseuds/wargoddess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A slightly-silly AU in which the Hawkes never left Ferelden, Cullen becomes both Knight Commander and Viscount of Kirkwall, and a certain surly ex-farmboy is sent as the bride in an arranged marriage.</p><p>There will be puppies.  Oh yes, there *will.*</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tanukiham](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tanukiham/gifts).



     Carver had expected the Viscount Commander of Kirkwall to look like a monster.  A _good_ man didn't serve for years in a place like the Kirkwall Gallows, did he?  And even if that man had later mutinied against his commander, killed her, and been appointed Viscount by the city's grateful nobles, there were enough ugly stories about Kirkwall Templars that no way in the Void was Carver going to let his sister come within a league of the fucker.

     But the man who stood atop the Keep's steps did not look like a monster.  Indeed, as Carver climbed out of the carriage and stood for a moment to get his land-legs back -- three weeks on a ship from Denerim, half of which he'd spent throwing up -- he found himself staring.  The Viscount Commander cut an impressive figure:  shining Chantry armor despite the day's warmth, a rich red cape on his shoulders and painful-looking iron circlet of office on his brow, and a sword that looked to not be ornamental on his hip.  And he was young, which Carver hadn't expected at all -- older than Carver, that was, and maybe a bit older than Garrett, but nowhere near _old_.  Somehow the image that Carver had conjured from all the tales about the man was someone older, weedier, more visibly the pervert.  Instead, apart from the armor and the circlet, Viscount Commander Cullen was bog-standard Ferelden, blond and unfancy, which probably stuck hard in these snooty Kirkwallers' craws.

     And when the man blinked in visible surprise, assessing Carver in turn and _smiling_ in a pleased sort of way that had no hint of mockery to it -- and Carver was watching close -- Carver almost considered liking him. 

     If he hadn't had to marry the fucker, he might well have.

     "Welcome to Kirkwall, Lord Amell," said a red-haired man near the carriage.  Carver flinched and tried desperately to remember if this was one of the people Garrett had told him to be nice to.  Sod it, he couldn't remember any of the names; he'd have to be nice to everybody.  "I am Bran, Seneschal of the Keep.  I trust your journey went well?"

     "Uh, fine," said Carver, remembering belatedly to bow as his mother had taught him.  His sword-harness slipped a little as he did so, probably because _warriors weren't supposed to bow_ , sod it all, and he saw the seneschal's eyebrows lift at the sight of the hilt over Carver's shoulder.  Mother had warned him not to wear his sword, too, but damned if he was coming into the town Father had fled first chance without _some_ kind of steel to hand.  They'd convinced him to wear a smart uniform of fine black cloth and piping, and to forego armor; that was as far as he was willing to go.

     So, irritated by the seneschal's look, Carver added, "No pirates and no storms, and nobody died of scurvy or dysentery.  We got a nice good look at your giant slave-statues on the way in; that was pleasant."

     The seneschal's face twitched, but to his credit he managed to keep his smile.  "Well.  Yes.  May I introduce the Viscount Commander of Kirkwall?"  He gestured for Carver to proceed to the foot of the steps where the man stood waiting, so Carver braced himself and strode forward.

     "My dear Lord Amell," said the Viscount, offering his hands; with an effort, Carver made himself take them, and hold on for a full span of breath before pulling away.  "You are as handsome and formidable as the stories say.  I am honored to meet you at last."

     _Handsome?  Formidable?_   For a moment Carver stared at him, on the brink of turning to check for who the Viscount Commander was really talking about.  But no; the man's eyes were on him.  _Me?_

     No.  It was just court flattery; he'd seen sworn enemies make better compliments to each other at the Landsmeet.  "Uh, thanks," Carver said, then tried to think of a compliment in return, failed, and stumbled on.  "Honored to meet you, too.  Suppose we should get this over with?"

     It was too blunt and too honest, he realized belatedly.  The seneschal's face did another of those twitches, as if it was taking everything he had to hold in some acid comment or another.  The Viscount Commander blinked in surprise.  "Surely you're tired after your long journey?" he asked.  "You should have tea, a night to rest.  In the morning -- "

     The seneschal's cough interrupted him.  "My lord, if Lord Amell _wants_ to have the ceremony now, I see no reason why we should delay."

     Immediately Carver bristled.  They all knew what this wedding was really about, but at least the Viscount Commander was trying to be decent.  With one sentence, however, Bran had made Carver feel every inch the whore he was.

     The Viscount Commander didn't like it either, to his credit; he threw a hard look at the seneschal, who returned it with pleasant impassivity.  Then the Viscount Commander turned to Carver.  "Are you certain, Lord Amell?  Our respective nations will not collapse overnight if you prefer to complete the ceremony tomorrow."

     "I'm sure."  And then Carver looked at the seneschal too, not bothering to be polite anymore.  "Then I'd like to retire to my quarters, wherever they'll be, so I can get a good night's sleep.  Alone."

     That did it.  The seneschal's face did more than twitch this time; he darted a sharp look at Carver.  "Your quarters will of course be those of the Viscount Commander -- "

     "No, they won't."  Carver folded his arms.  "If you've got a problem with that, you can show me to the nearest pub that's got rooms.  Or I can go camp up on that coast trail I saw on the way in."  He jerked his head eastward, over the city's walls.  "I've slept worse."

     The seneschal turned a color that nearly the purple of the sunset horizon.  But as he opened his mouth to finally let out all that bile he'd been keeping in, the Viscount Commander said, "Of _course_ you shall have a separate suite, Lord Amell.  And of course we shall see to it that your privacy is respected at all turns.  Shall we not, Bran?"

     Bran closed his mouth, and clearly spent a moment composing himself.  "Of course, my lord Viscount.  Commander."  Another little twitch, as if he'd had to remember to add the latter half of that title.  "I merely wanted to be certain that I understood Lord Amell."  His eyes narrowed at Carver.  "You do not mean to consummate the marriage tonight, I take it?"

     The Viscount Commander grimaced.  "Bran, that is indelicate -- "

     "No, I don't mean to consummate squat," Carver said, annoyed.  "Not 'til I sodding _feel_ like it.  _If_ I ever do."

     "That is -- " began the seneschal, hotly.

     " _Completely acceptable_ ," said the Viscount Commander, throwing the seneschal such a quelling glance that it might have been a Holy Smite.  "This is difficult enough for both of us, Bran, without you making it more so."

     At that, the seneschal's jaw flexed.  "Of course, my lord; my apologies.  We can certainly discuss this later."  The look that he threw Carver was so carefully neutral that Carver felt a bit of disappointment; he'd rather hoped to have it out with the smarmy bastard right here.  Instead the seneschal bowed at the neck -- which Carver thought was not precisely proper; Mother had tried to teach him about bows and such, and the one thing he'd taken away from it was that you bowed more to somebody who was your social better.  But the seneschal only said, "I'll fetch our witnesses and meet you inside."  And then he bowed -- from the waist -- to the Viscount Commander, before turning to precede them up the steps.

     _Fucker._

     The Viscount Commander sighed, looking after him until he was out of earshot, then glanced back at Carver.  "My apologies," he said.  "Bran is a political creature.  I value his counsel, since I most certainly am _not_ political, but he does take some... getting used to."

     "Yeah, well." Carver shrugged, settling his sword back into place after all that bowing.  "Not gonna bend over and let you in my arse just 'cause _he_ wants me to, sorry."

      The man actually flinched, his face going pale beneath his tan.  "Oh.  Ah.  Well.  Yes."  His discomfort was so keen that Carver almost felt sorry for his crudeness.  Almost.  "Then, ah, at your leisure, Lord Amell."  He offered a hand again.

     "Carver."  Carver glanced at the proferred hand and shrugged again, brushing past him and proceeding up the steps.  "We're gonna be married, might as well go with first names.  And anyway, I use my father's surname, Hawke.  Don't call me that, though; makes me feel like my brother.  Carver's fine."

     The Viscount Commander trailed for a moment, then moved to pace him.  "Carver Hawke it is, then," he said, plainly choosing not to take offense at Carver's brushoff.  "Please feel free to call me Cullen."

     "Right."  _Viscount Commander_ was too much of a damned mouthful anyway.

     They went up the steps and into the Keep, where a Chantry brother who was obviously Not From Around Here waited along with a couple of city guards as witnesses, and the ceremony was done like that, quick as you please.  Carver managed not to stiffen up too much when Cullen leaned in for the kiss, and to his great relief Cullen kept it a brief, chaste thing, just a peck on the lips and a scratchy brush of beard against his own close-shaven skin.

     Cullen smiled as he pulled away, though, murmuring, "I am very glad to have you here, Carver Hawke."  And his fingers brushed Carver's arm in the briefest of touches before he stepped away.  It had not been a calculated thing, Carver was certain, and as seductions went it was -- nothing.  Didn't even rate.  Still.  The feel of that little touch lingered awhile, even after the servants had shown Carver off to a sumptuous suite that was easily three times the size of his rooms at the estate in Denerim.

     And after Carver had bathed and eaten what the servants brought and flopped himself down on the bed in nothing but trousers, he touched his arm and could not help thinking that this was his wedding night; a shame he had to spend it alone just to make a point to some arrogant pinprick.  'Cause Cullen might not be quite what he'd had in mind for a husband or wife, but at least the man wasn't a bad looker, and... well... yeah.

     "He needs to get some sleep, though," he muttered to himself, then turned over to do the same.

#

     It had not been Carver's idea, of course.  That particular credit could be laid at the feet of his big brother, Garret-fucking-wanker-Hawke, best friend of the Hero of Fereldan and piece-on-the-side to the Maker-damned queen.  Carver had been right there with him on that journey, right there as they faced the Archdemon, but did anybody think _he_ was a hero?  Maybe.  But that hadn't stopped Queen Anora from shipping him off to another country as goods-in-trade.

     "It's either you or Bethany," Garrett had said.  He'd said it in the den of their new _castle_ , which they'd been given by the queen because they were nobles and because the Arl of Denerim had been a bastard before they'd killed him and because apparently Garrett could really lay the pipe.  "Kirkwall's pushing the idea of an alliance with Fereldan, since both lands have incurred the wrath of the Chantry.  And with war brewing between the mages and the Templars, and the Qunari on everyone's flank, both lands could use allies.  But they want to marry their Viscount-whatever to Anora, and..."

     And Garrett had looked away.  Because he couldn't just be _fucking_ the queen, naturally; he'd actually gone and _fallen_ for her, the damned fool.  But there was more to it than that.  When Carver had protested, their mother had pulled Carver aside and explained that because they were now Ferelden nobles, they had to show loyalty to the queen or risk losing the title -- and the castle, and the income she'd bestowed on them, and the protection that came from royal favor.  Then they'd be back where they started:  foreign nobles without a penny to their name, or a home after the Blight's destruction of Lothering, and with no allies whatsoever.  Half the Fereldan nobility was still pissed at Garrett for getting Alistair killed and saddling them with Anora as queen -- and with fanatical Templars roaming Thedas, Garrett and Bethany's high profiles as known apostates made them targets. 

     It was Carver's duty to look after them.  That's what his father would've wanted.

     So Carver had agreed, because if it had to be either him or Bethany stuck with an evil Templar, at least Carver wouldn't need magic to fight back if the blighter got handsy.

     To that end, he rose early the next morning, put on some old clothes -- the lone set of which Mother had let him bring -- and headed out of his quarters in search of a place to practice.  There wasn't one, though, not in or immediately around the apartments set aside for the Viscount Commander or his family.  So Carver went wandering more widely, into the public floors of the Keep.  Since the Keep hadn't yet opened for the Viscount Commander's public hours, there was no one about except a few city guards and servants, who looked at him oddly when he walked out of the royal wing and nodded to them in passing.  And though he checked behind a number of doors on these levels, he could find nothing suitable here either -- not even a sufficiently empty room in which he could just do some sword-swinging to limber up.

     He was rightly pissed off by the time he finally wandered into the guards' wing.  They, at least, ought to have somewhere to square off against a dummy or something -- yet he saw nothing, and no doors to the outside that might indicate such.  No one bothered him, either, as he looked around; the guards all seemed a desultory bunch, looking bored at their posts or glaring at him when he accidentally opened the door to their dormitory.  But none stirred themselves enough to challenge him.  Or to answer his questions; he got grunts or glares when he approached a few.  Finally he went to one of the elven servants who seemed to be stationed here, who looked up in surprise at his approach.  "Where's the guard do their swordwork?"

     "Your pardon, serrah?"  The woman looked around, frowning as if she hadn't understood the question.  "I, ah, I'm not sure -- "

     "Swords?  Practice dummies?  Arrow targets?"  Carver pantomimed holding a sword.  "They're fighters, right?  How do they stay sharp?"

     "Who the Void are you to ask?" said a man in a guard's uniform, turning from some conversation he'd been having and coming over with a scowl on his face. 

     _Be polite_ , Carver cautioned himself, because it was obvious that this fellow was an officer or something; he wore more straps and orange patches on his armor than everyone else, and he was a bit older than the usual run.  But he could not help bristling a little at the man's tone.  He hoped it didn't show much.

     "Thanks," he made himself say.  "My name's C -- "

     " _Ferelden_."  The man's eyes narrowed at Carver's accent.  "Should've known.  Get out of here, Ferelden, before I have you in irons."

     Carver scowled.  "For what?  Look, I'm sorry if I'm interrupting, but if someone will just answer me, I'll get out of your hair.  Where's -- "

     "You need a dog-whistle, Ferelden?"  The other guards laughed at this; the man smirked.  "What part of 'get out' do you not understand?"

     Oh, that was just _it_.  Carver set his feet.  "You got some kind of problem with Fereldens?  I don't recall seeing any Kirkwallers saving the world from darkspawn."

     "I don't have a problem with them being back there with the darkspawn.  I've got a problem with them being in my city.  You.  In my city."  The man stepped closer, getting into Carver's face and jabbing a mail-clad finger against his shoulder.  "You being in my _barracks_.  You giving me _lip_."

     Carver swatted his hand away.  "I've got as much right to be here as you!  And you're lucky I'm trying not to start any diplomatic incidents by _breaking_ your smarmy _face_ \-- "

     The man's face twisted at Carver's swat.  "Arrest this dog-lord!  We'll see if a few days in the stocks won't show him his place."

     Hands grabbed Carver, and that was enough.  Furious, he shook them off and drew his blade and shouted loud enough that they all fell back -- even the man who'd poked him, who looked surprised.  That gave him enough room to sink into a defensive crouch.  But before he could think what to do or say next -- or just decide to _fuck it all_ and kill everyone in the room -- one of the guards near the door gasped and whistled sharply.  They all turned, and some of the guards exclaimed or visibly stumbled back, for the Viscount Commander stood glowering at them from the steps. 

     "What is this?"

     In spite of himself, Carver shivered.  So Cullen was the quiet rage-type and not a shouter.  He _hated_ the quiet rage-types.  "I just wanted to ask a question," he began.

     "Captain Jeven," Cullen snapped, and Carver blinked in surprise.  The man who'd poked him flinched and stepped forward, saluting.

     "My apologies, Viscount Commander, for the commotion," he said.  "We were just arresting this foreign criminal -- "

     " _Criminal_?  I haven't done _shit_ , you lying blighter!" Carver cried.

     Cullen's lips pressed white.  He swept down the steps and into Jeven's face in the span of a breath.  " _That_ ," he said, enunciating each word 'til it was razor-sharp, "is my _husband_."

     Utter silence fell in the room; utter shock on every face.  Carver blushed violently.

     "I cannot see what laws _Lord Amell_ might have broken between arriving yesterday and this morning," Cullen continued, still in that deadly quiet tone.  "And further, I cannot see why calling him -- or any Ferelden -- a 'dog lord' is appropriate.  He is in your city; he has committed no crime; therefore he merits your respect for that reason alone."  Cullen glared around so fiercely that some of the guards took a step back.  "And _if_ ," he said, stepping even closer to Jeven, "you have such a problem with Fereldens, then I shall expect your resignation on my seneschal's desk by the close of business today.  For surely you have the same problem with me?"

     Captain Jeven paled.  "I've no problem with Fereldens, ser.  I swear.  I, I'd heard about your marriage, but I didn't think...  He just walked in..."  Abruptly he realized he was babbling, and attempted to steel himself.  "I shall distribute Lord Amell's description to the whole of the guard so that no one will mistake him again.  Please allow me to tender my deepest apologies to you, Viscount Commander."  He executed a smart bow.

     Cullen's eyes narrowed, and he said nothing.  Sweat broke visibly on Jeven's forehead and upper lip.  Carver didn't want to feel sympathy for the man, but he did.  He also didn't want to feel glee at Cullen's fury, because that was a weird sort of thing, wasn't it?  Having someone defend you because they had some kind of claim on you?  And what was Cullen waiting for?

     Belatedly Jeven turned to Carver and bowed again more deeply, though more stiffly.  "My apologies, serrah, for failing to recognize you."

     Oh.  Carver belatedly sheathed his sword, but then he folded his arms.  "That's it?  You're only apologizing 'cause of who I am?  Not what you did?"

     Jeven's nostrils flared, and there was real hate in his eyes; Carver had made an enemy.  But he said, "My further apologies for... asaulting you, serrah, and for insulting you."

     "Yeah.  Apology accepted."  Less than satisfied -- he'd have been happier lopping the fucker's head off, but you couldn't always get what you wanted -- Carver turned and walked toward the steps to leave.  It was a little satifying to see the guards scurry out of his way as he did so... but only a little.  They weren't scurrying because of _him_ , after all.  Just because of who he was supposedly fucking.

     He was out of the wing and headed for the Keep's front door when Cullen called to him from behind.  Reluctantly he stopped and turned back; Cullen stood atop the foyer steps, his face set and cold with anger.  "Carver.  Would you join me, please, in my office?"  Without waiting to see if Carver followed, he turned and headed in the opposite direction to the guards' wing.

     _Oh, what the Void?_   Carver scowled and considered walking out anyway.  The last damn thing he felt like was getting scolded; bad enough he had to endure that from Garrett and Mother, but at least he didn't have to let them in his trousers.

     He couldn't think of where else to go, though, except a generic sort of _out_ , so finally Carver sighed and followed Cullen up.

     Once the library doors had closed, Carver braced himself and preemptively said, "I shouldn't have to wear full formal dress all the time just to be treated like a person."

     It was almost fascinating to watch Cullen's expression grow even colder.  Lips a thin line, he turned and pushed open the double doors that led to his office.  Bran sat there, writing something on a scroll; he rose and bowed as Cullen came in.

     "Captain Jeven," Cullen said, tightly.  "Should I have him whipped, or simply fired?"

     Carver stopped in his tracks.  _Whoa_.

     The seneschal, to his credit, merely paused for a moment before replying.  "If I may ask, my lord, how has he offended?"

     Cullen brushed past him and began pacing.  The office, which was surprisingly neat, wasn't quite large enough to safely accommodate him, especially not when the man insisted upon wearing full armor -- yet he managed it, somehow, without knocking over any of the stacks of paper on the desk, or dinging the furnishings.  Carver stopped just inside the door to watch in no little awe.  "He almost arrested my new husband, Bran."

     Bran made a pained face.  "Oh.  Dear.  Poor judgment on his part."

     "For no reason that I can ascertain," Cullen continued, "other than that Lord Amell was Ferelden and appeared, at first glance, to have none of the wealth or connections which would insulate him from such persecution."  He propped his mailed fists on the desk, his shoulders jerking with suppressed fury.  "It is unconscionable that such a man holds a respectable office, Bran.  The nobles elected me Viscount in hopes that I would _reduce_ the bigotry which drags us all toward war.  That goes for mages, for Fereldens, for elves, all of it!"

     Bran cleared his throat.  "I see.  Well, in light of that, perhaps it would be best simply to fire him.  Having him whipped would only diminish his authority and effectiveness to unacceptable levels anyhow."

     "Then see it done."  Cullen straightened.  "Shall I recommend a Templar to replace him, or do you think there's a prospective candidate within the guard-ranks who can remember that _all_ the citizens of Kirkwall are within his demesne?"

     Bran sighed.  "My lord Viscount Commander, while I am certain you know many good candidates, you cannot replace _every_ city official with Templars.  If nothing else, the strength of the Gallows must be maintained -- "

     "The strength of _Kirkwall_ takes precedence, for the strength of the Gallows depends on that.  But I will defer to your judgment in this, for now."  With that, he came around the desk again, his expression intent.  "Come with me, Lord A -- Carver.  Bran, we shall reconvene after lunch."

     And Carver found himself following Cullen again, this time as the latter strode with visible anger through the throne room and into a corridor that Carver had not noticed the day before, through an unobtrusive door to one side of the throne.  The corridor was narrow and dimly lit, though there was light ahead, and a few moments later it widened into a vast, open-air atrium in the middle of the Keep.  Someone had decorated this one with broad-leafed plants and the odd sculpture of some dead Kirkwaller or another, but the floor of the place was firm packed sand, and there were racks of weapons and shields along the walls.  Carver even spotted a practice dummy hidden among the palm fronds.

     _Now this is more like it._   He had stopped, looking around and taking it all in, when he heard the rustle of cloth and looked to see Cullen folding and setting aside his heavy cloak of office.  He went to a wall-rack and took up a heavy Templar shield there, hefting it on his arm as if remembering what it felt like, then glanced over his shoulder at Carver.  "Wooden swords?"

     _Oh-ho!_   Carver grinned, liking the man more in spite of himself.  "You want to spar?  Now?"

     "That was your intent, was it not?  You strike me as a man of action."

     "Yeah.  You, though?"  Shit, that was an insult.  He knew full well Cullen had won his position as Knight Commander in combat.  "I mean, you, uh, have duties and such, don't you?  Can't get all sweaty."

     "I can deal with that.  And my intention, serrah, is to get to know you."  After a moment's thought, Cullen pulled off his iron circlet of office and tossed it over near his folded cloak.  "And to apologize."

     "What?"

     "For your poor treatment thus far."  Cullen drew a deep breath, and abruptly Carver realized Cullen was _nervous_.  It was hard to tell, beneath all the stiffness and proper manners and such, but on the practice ground it was easy to read:  a tension about his shoulders, a tightness in the way he held himself.  "You have traveled far, into unknown conditions and for vague circumstances, and we of Kirkwall have done little to ease your transition.  I take what happened this morning as a personal insult."  He set his jaw.  "If you wish to vent your understandable anger, it would be easier to do that against an opponent, would it not?"

     _That's almost sweet._   Carver chuckled a little, awkwardly.  "Well, yeah, but you don't have to play the practice dummy for me, for sod's sake.  I mean -- I wouldn't mind, just..."  Urgh, this was getting harder and harder.  "Okay, then.  Never mind the wood; I'll pull my blows if you will.  Let's just go at it, hard and fast."

     He did not think about what he'd said until Cullen's cheeks flared pink.  Then Carver thought about it and _his_ face got hot.  Flame's sake, every conversation was suddenly a minefield of innuendo, just because he was married.

     But it did not escape him that _Cullen's_ thoughts had immediately jumped to sex, too.  Well, at least it wasn't just him.

     He had no more time to think on it, though, because Cullen drew his sword and took a defensive stance.  So Carver drew his own blade, flexed his wrists a bit, and set to.

     The whole session was a revelation, though it started slow.  He'd thought Cullen would be the stolid, by-the-book sort, but he was surprisingly quick and flexible, and creative once they both relaxed and he realized Carver could handle him.  Carver also found himself relaxing a few minutes in; Maker, the man could _fight_!  Indeed, when Carver unleashed a flurry of blows that rightly should've divested Cullen of his shield at best and broken his arm at worst, Cullen didn't even sweat, just used his shield to slant away the worst force of each strike.  Then in the same movement he threw a return blow at Carver that could well have broken his nose if Carver hadn't backed off.  Cursing, Carver leapt out of his range to catch his breath -- but he was grinning.  "You didn't learn all that in some Chantry yard!"

     "I did not, no."  With a pleased look, Cullen straightened from the attack stance he'd been in, taking the moment to shake sweat from his face.  "My former commander taught me a great deal.  As have the smugglers and Qunari and slavers and pirates of Kirkwall, I am afraid."

     Carver laughed, then did a quick assessment.  He could go awhile longer, but Cullen had duties, and it was best that he take it easy this first time out of the gate, after weeks on shipboard and stuck in a cramped carriage.  He sheathed his blade and moved to sit on a convenient boulder, shaking his head when Cullen lifted both eyebrows in "go again?" inquiry.  So Cullen replaced his shield on the wall and sheathed his sword, then tossed Carver a small towel from a stack on a nearby shelf; Carver nodded thanks.

     "You are clearly no amateur yourself," Cullen said.  He had moved over to a pump half-hidden among elephants' ear leaves, beginning to strip off his armor.

     "I learned a little from a lot of different places," Carver said, shrugging.  "My father taught me a bit -- he was a mage, you know, but he tried not to use magic unless he had to.  Some of the Templars in Lothering, a bit more; the soldiers in Cailan's army more still.  The rest I picked up same as you:  fighting for my bloody life, against darkspawn and brigands and Maker knows what else."

     "I am told you were one of the heroes of Fereldan."

     Carver paused, narrowing eyes at him, but there was no hint of mockery in the other man's expression.  Cullen merely looked thoughtful.  "Yeah," he said, "though that was less about fighting darkspawn and more about trying to keep my family together.  We got into a skirmish with some darkspawn, after they destroyed our farm and drove us out of Lothering -- "

     "Farm?"  Cullen looked a little taken aback.

     Carver set his jaw.  "Yeah, _farm_.  What of it?"

     "Nothing."  But Cullen was smiling.  "I simply had not realized... well.  Much was made of your noble blood -- _Kirkwaller_ noble blood -- when your land's ambassadors suggested the match.  It is what made you acceptable to the nobles here.  But I forget that you were not noble-ranked in _Fereldan_ until recently."

     "Yeah.  Well."  Carver supposed that was understandable.  "So we got ambushed, and Alistair -- the last Grey Warden in all Fereldan, also the last Theirin, good man, stupid sense of humor -- saved our lives.  So we traveled with him awhile, saving each other, and finally he found a safe place for our mother at Redcliffe, since he knew the Arl.  We owed him for that, so we -- my brother and sister and I -- helped him the rest of the way."  He sobered.  "'Til the end, when he took down the Archdemon and died in the doing."

     "I'd heard some, but not all, of that story."  Cullen finally had all the plates of armor off.  "My condolences; clearly you regarded him as a friend."

     "Yeah.  First Templar I ever liked."  Belatedly he remembered that Cullen was a Templar.  "Uh..."

     Cullen made an amused sound.  "No offense taken.  These past few years, I have come to marvel that anyone likes any Templar."  Abruptly he sobered.  "And given your family... circumstances... I imagine you have had more reason than most for, ah, concern."

     "Yeah."  Which made Carver bristle, just a little.  "I figure you're disappointed you didn't get my sister as a bride, but, y'know.  _Circumstances_."

     He drew his sword to check it for nicks, and to try and cover his anger.  Though he had no idea why he was suddenly so angry.  To his surprise, though, after a moment Cullen said, "I would have refused your sister, had she been offered."

     Carver frowned over at Cullen, who had stripped the chain and gambeson and sweat-soaked shirt from his upper body and now stood steaming faintly in the morning air.  "Because she's a mage?"  He tried to keep his tone neutral and failed; he was getting angrier.

     "Because she is a woman."  Cullen worked one shoulder as if it pained him, though Carver thought this might be a cover.  "The succession here in Kirkwall has little to do with lineage; few of the Viscounts who preceded me _inherited_ the title, so I have no particular need of heirs.  And I am a Chantry orphan.  I do not know my parentage, but mage blood is the most common reason for the Chantry to take in a newborn babe.  The better to catch them early, should they show the signs of magic."

     Carver blinked in surprise.  "Oh."  He... hadn't known that at all.  " _Oh_.  And magic runs in our line already."

     "Yes."  Cullen glanced at him, face hardening.  "I'll not risk inflicting the curse of magic on any child, where I can help it."

     It was the same choice Carver himself had made, back when he'd realized what being a mage really meant for Garrett and Bethany.  "Um.  Okay."  Then he scowled.  "Magic's not a curse, though.  Demons are, yeah, and _misused_ magic is.  Getting imprisoned and killed and hunted and mind-fucked by Templars is, too.  But being a mage is just being a mage."  He lifted his chin, thinking _Now come at me, bastard, so I can hate you_.

     Cullen only sighed, however, and worked the pump to get the water flowing.  "You are not wrong, and I misspoke; forgive me, the Chantry's teachings are difficult to shed after a lifetime.  But I did eventually come to the same conclusion as you -- after many years, I am sad to admit, and after seeing many lives destroyed unnecessarily.  Would that I could go back and undo the harm I did."  With this, he bent and began rinsing himself at the pump, while Carver stared at him gape-mouthed until he remembered to close it. 

     And then he found himself staring at the play of water over Cullen's neck as he put his head under the pump-stream.  And the way that water trickled over smooth, tanned skin as Cullen straightened, gasping from the cold.  And the way a faint trail of dark blond hair started at his navel and widened on the way down into the folds of his gambeson and chainmail -- 

     Shit.  Carver tore his eyes away before Cullen could catch him at it.  _Maker Bless._

     "My thanks for the match," Cullen said, as he got himself dried off and began to pull the gambeson back on; he'd tossed the shirt aside as too wet to wear.  "This salle is yours to use whenever you wish, and I would be happy to spar with you again in the mornings when I am free."

     "Yeah."  Carver shrugged, studiously keeping his gaze turned away until Cullen was mostly armored again.  He stretched and then grimaced as his own shoulders twinged.  _Should've warmed up first._   "Good to have somebody around who can hold his own, actually.  Back in Denerim, I had to fight Brother's mabari to get any real exercise."

     "A mabari!  Maker's Breath, I've been too long away if I'd forgotten those."  Cullen grinned and began strapping his armor back on.  "Would that I had a few here in the Keep.  I daresay they'd do a better job with security than the guard."

     "'Course they would," Carver said, then grinned and dared a little.  "Long as you didn't fire 'em for looking at you crosswise, that is."

     To his relief, Cullen laughed.  "Which, being upstanding Fereldens, no mabari would ever do.  Alas, I cannot; already I endure constant grumbling from those who resent the Ferelden and Templar influence I bring to the throne."

     "Yeah, can't have the dog lord having _actual dogs_ , right?"

     "No."  With that Cullen sighed, pulling on his gauntlets.  Then he abruptly looked uncomfortable.  "Ah, perhaps... perhaps we could have dinner this evening."

     Ah, here it was.  "Sure," said Carver, sheathing his blade again and plastering a neutral expression on his own face.  "Your place or mine?"

     Cullen flushed so deep a red that his face rivaled the strips of Chantry crimson that showed through his armor-seams.  "Ah, the dining hall of the private level, actually.  I thought... it seemed..."  He rubbed a hand over his damp hair.  "Oh, Maker's Breath, why is this so difficult?"

     As Carver had been thinking that exact thing, he could not help liking Cullen that much more.  So he made an impulse decision.

     "Because we should probably get this over with," he said, getting to his feet and going over to Cullen.  "It'll be all balls-up until we do."

     Cullen went stiff -- and not in the good sort of way.  "Get, ah... over with?"

     Oh, fucking _Maker_.  "You're not a virgin?"  What the Void was he supposed to do with _that_?

     Cullen went utterly still, and for that span of breath Carver feared he would say yes.  "N-no," Cullen said at last.  "But, ah... well... this is of course... _different_."

     "Well, maybe we shouldn't make it different, is all I'm saying.  I mean, I shared a tent with another fellow the nights before Ostagar and Denerim both, just to work off nerves.  Made it easier to fight.  Maybe we should treat it like that."  He stepped closer, and was that _panic_ in the man's eyes?  He stopped in confusion.

     But after a moment, Cullen took a deep breath and swallowed.  "I take any vow made before the Maker seriously, my lord Amell," he said quietly.  "It is not my nature to... ah... to _work off nerves_.  Not in that manner."

     Well, shit.  "Uh, okay."  Which sodding vows was he talking about?  _To love and cherish_...  What, those?  Was he serious?  "Look, Cullen, this is just business, right?  Your nation and mine, the alliance -- this is just Anora sending one of her people to you as a show of trust.  I'm a _hostage_ , really, and not much of one; she doesn't even like me."  Though she did like Garrett, and Carver supposed that had some power.

     But Cullen scowled, looking stubborn.  "I refuse to see this in such cold terms, Carver.  Those vows make us partners -- business partners if you must, but more than that.  I married you because I have need of a helpmeet and confidante, and I offer the same to you in turn.  If you do not feel that way now, then it is my duty to change your mind."

     And -- stiff shoulders and all -- he moved past Carver, and would have left.  Startled, Carver jerked and caught his arm, then wondered why he'd done so when Cullen turned back, frowning warily.

     "I'm sorry," Carver blurted.  That usually worked, didn't it?  When he'd offended someone without even realizing how?  And sure enough, some of the stiffness went out of Cullen's arm.  "Look, this is just weird, and I was trying to find a way past that.  I didn't mean to, uh..."  Whatever he'd done.

     Cullen relaxed more.  "It is understandable.  And... I will admit that I am... tempted, by your offer."  He blushed again, that all-over beet-deep shade that Carver would forever think of as _Cullen red_ and not Chantry red from there forth.  "But, well... I want this to be special, between us.  Do you not?  Please, allow me to... to woo you.  If I can.  I... would like that."

     _What the sod for?_   But Carver let go of him, too confused to know what to do next.  "Special.  Right, wooing then.  Um.  Yeah."

     Cullen took a deep breath before nodding.  "So, I shall see you this evening."  And then, before Carver could figure out why Cullen was just _standing_ there, Cullen visibly steeled himself and leaned in to kiss him.  It was no worse -- and no better -- than the tiresome little kiss he'd given Carver during the ceremony the day before.

     _Sod this.  If he's going to woo me, then I get to woo him right the Void back._

     So as Cullen pulled away, Carver caught his arm again and cupped his face and gave him a _proper_ kiss -- no tongue, though that was only because he feared scaring the man off.  But there was rather a lot that could be done without that -- like brushing his lips against Cullen's just enough to tease, feather-light; like running the tip of his tongue along the bottom curve of Cullen's lips; like stroking the hair at the nape of Cullen's neck while he did so as a promise of other, better caresses to come.

     And -- _Maker_.  Cullen shivered all over, making a little sound of want that went right to Carver's groin, and leaning into the kiss in a way that made Carver suddenly very, very impatient to be wooed.  Like, now.  Like, right here, or maybe bent over that rock he'd just been sitting on.  He slid his hand down Cullen's mailed arm and caught his hand and tried to tug him nearer still --

     All at once Cullen jerked back, an accusatory look on his face.  " _My lord_.  Please."

     "Oh, for -- "  This was fucking ridiculous.  But --  "Fine."  So he let Cullen go, and took deep breaths to cool off as Cullen turned to leave.

     But as he reached the corridor entrance Cullen paused, glancing back and looking awkward and blushing and... Void, he was kind of adorable, like that.  Then he fixed his gaze full on Carver, and Carver's cock twitched hard at the look on his face.

     "That is the kiss you gave me with no particular feeling attached," Cullen said, softly.  "That was mere desire, my lord Carver.  Can you see why I would rather wait, and have _all_ that I may of you?"

     And Carver rocked back a little on his heels with the force of that thought.  "Well, uh, when you put it that way..."

     Cullen smiled.  Then he drew his sword, held it in formal stance, and touched his forehead to the blade in salute before pivoting to leave.  In his wake, Carver stared after him, more than a little stunned.


	2. Chapter 2

     It was not at all the sort of thing that Cullen had signed on for, when he took the oath to become a Templar. 

     None of it, really:  the madness of the Blight; the torment of Kinloch; the longer, slower torment of his time in the Gallows, which had done more to test his faith than any demon; the existential shock of being forced to turn against his own commander for the sake of righteousness.  But the worst of it was that he had somehow ended up Viscount at the end of everything.

     Oh, it made _sense_ , certainly.  The Knight Commanders of Kirkwall had de facto ruled the city for generations, however many noble buttocks had warmed the Keep's throne.  More efficient, not to mention honest, to finally and simply acknowledge reality.  Which was all well and good in theory, except that the Chantry was now considering an Exalted March against the city for its -- well, Cullen's -- refusal to execute every mage within its borders.  And except that being Viscount Commander meant Cullen no longer had time to do any of the things a Templar should:  seek out evil and slay it, hone his body and soul in righteous combat, strike back against all the magic-spawned injustices of the world.  Now he had no choice but to grit his teeth and smile when Tevinter ambassadors -- Magisters, of course, reeking of blood and demons -- came to call.  Now the Chantry had excommunicated him, which did not trouble him half so much as the fact that many of his fellow Templars had given up their commissions in protest of his ascension.

     And now he was married, and he still did not quite know how that had happened, or how he truly felt about it.  He did know, however, that he was beginning to like Carver Hawke a great deal, in spite of himself.

     "You're shitting me," Carver said, eyes wide with disbelief.

     "Not at all," said Cullen, lifting his mug.  They had retired to the reading salon of the upper levels after dinner -- dinner itself having been far more casual than was usual for the formal dining hall.  After their sparring match that morning, Cullen had taken pains to request that dinner be served with both place-settings at the same end of the long table, and that the food include both Kirkwall specialties and Fereldan comfort foods, and a decent ale.  Carver had noticeably relaxed once it became clear that Cullen did not stand on ceremony, and that he had the same -- low -- opinion of Kirkwallers' attempts to master the nuances of shepherd's pie.  They had spent the evening complaining about it, then moved on to more intellectual topics.

     "They are called 'lobsters', and the folk of Lowtown claim them delicious, I am told."

     "But they're _bugs_!"  Carver looked scandalized.

     "When food is dear and hunger fierce, many things become food which were not, before."

     At this Carver sobered.  "Yeah.  I know all about that."  He was half sprawled in the bigger of the two plush chairs in the room, one leg draped over the arm, his mug of ale balanced on his lap.  That he was not nearly as drunk as he seemed showed in the question that followed.  "You gonna do something about that?"

     Cullen, who had taken the smaller chair and propped his feet on its ottoman, understood what he meant at once.  "The problems of Kirkwall well predate me, and will take years to resolve, I suspect," he said.  "But yes, I mean to do something about 'that'.  I am hampered by the lack of a Chantry; without it, private citizens have taken over the succor of the poor, where they can.  I have been funding a woman named Lirene in Lowtown, for example; she has done well in aiding the poor of Ferelden, and lately those of Kirkwall.  With the city's economy unstable due to the war, however..."

     "Hn.  Yeah, things got rough in Ferelden, too, during the Blight.  Still are.  We lost everything at Lothering, and if Brother hadn't won us royal favor, we'd be on the streets even now."  Carver's gaze was on the fire; in that unguarded moment he seemed younger, less the hardened warrior and more the lost boy.  "But I can't regret the farm; that's just land.  Almost lost _my sister_ , too.  We got attacked by 'spawn, and one of 'em, an ogre, grabbed her up.  Alistair came flying out of nowhere and took it down before it could crush her, easy as you please.  We didn't know he was the last Grey Warden, then.  We just thought he was Andraste reborn."

     "All praises to the Maker -- and to the Hero of Fereldan, lost though he be."  Cullen lifted his mug; Carver nodded and raised his in turn.  But there was too much of haunting and sorrow in him, so Cullen prompted, "Tell me of your sister?"

     He'd meant it only to jog Carver out of his grim mood; he was wholly unprepared for the way Carver's eyes slid over to him, a smile on his lips that was pure flirtation.  "Why?  Still hoping to replace me?"

     "Certainly not, as I told you."  Blushing and _not_ squirming, Cullen sat up -- then winced as a tendon at the join of his neck and shoulder twinged.  He rubbed at it, irritated.  "There's no reason to do so, for one thing; I'm more than pleased with you."

     He'd been rubbing at the twinge for nearly a minute when he noticed Carver's silence and frowned in puzzlement.  Carver watched him, thoughtful.  "What, you pull something?"

     "Yes," he admitted, reluctantly.  "It has been too long since I sparred at all, let alone at your advanced level."

     Carver chuckled.  "Getting spoiled, up here in your big castle?"  Then he grimaced.  "You're doing that all wrong, you'll just cock yourself up more.  Here."  And he got up and came over, moving behind Cullen's chair.  Cullen could not help starting when his big hands brushed Cullen's aside, and folded over his shoulders.  "Don't tense up."

     "Ah -- "

     "I said don't."  Carver's hands flexed a little, not so much a massage as an exploratory squeeze.  "Maker, you're hard.  Don't you ever relax?  And you're hot, right along here."  He drew a thumb along precisely the right tendon; Cullen hissed a little as that raised the twinge into a full-scale throb.

     And it did not help at _all_ that he felt an answering throb elsewhere. 

     Oh, Maker help him.  He had been thinking of things like this -- shameful little temptations -- since that afternoon's kiss.  How was he to woo the man properly when he could hardly think for wanting him _improperly_?

     "It is a shame we have no healers, here at the Keep," he said, to distract himself.  "I do miss some things about no longer being stationed at the Gallows."

     "Or a good Primal user, who could make you an ice pack."  As Cullen blinked with this -- he'd forgotten Carver was as familiar with mages as any Templar -- Carver moved around and crouched before his chair.  "Give me your arm.  Rubbing'll only make it worse, but if I give you a pull, that might help."

     So Cullen did so, and braced himself in the chair while Carver set his heels and began to slowly, steadily lean backward.  It did help; Cullen groaned a little as the tendon stretched.

     In the silence, he should have guessed that Carver was thinking; he could feel those sharp eyes on him, assessing, even now.  "Rumor has it you were at Kinloch when it fell to demons."

     Cullen did not mean to stiffen, and when he did it made the sore tendon flare painfully.  Carver eased up immediately when he gasped, and in the moment that it took for the pain to fade, Cullen managed to compose himself.  "Yes."

     Carver settled on his knees, one hand resting on Cullen's thigh.  "What happened?"

     "It is... not a thing I am... that is..."  Cullen took a deep breath, then looked away.  He had spoken of this only to Greagoir, and to Meredith, but the man he had married deserved as much of the truth -- if not less -- as they.  "Uldred, one of our senior mages, went off to the Blight and came back a traitor.  A servant of Loghain."

     "Fucker."  The venom in Carver's tone startled Cullen; he blinked at the man in surprise.  Carver gave him a thin smile.  "Loghain tried to kill us a few times, 'til Alistair killed him.  Good riddance, I say."

     "Ah."  Cullen could not disagree, given what Loghain's machinations had done to Kinloch Hold, and all Fereldan.  "A shame that the kingslayers of the world never have _their_ souls eaten by demons, only their pawns'.  And their victims."  When Carver nodded, Cullen took a deep breath.  Then he said all the rest of it:  the demon attack, Templars and mages alike hunted through the corridors by monstrosities, his own imprisonment and torment.  He censored the account heavily, of course -- and as he finally fell silent and lifted his gaze to meet Carver's again, he saw that the other man knew he'd left some things out.  He did not pry, however, for which Cullen would be forever grateful.

     "I've always known mages could fall like that," he said softly, frowning to himself.  "My brother and sister, though, and my father...  They're so strong.  _Were_ so strong, in the case of my father."

     "Not all mages are," Cullen said, and for a moment the old feeling was back, lurking, festering.  But Meredith had shown him, had she not?  Corruption could take many forms, and in many ways the hatred of magic was just as dangerous as its misuse.  So Cullen took a deep breath, and shed his.  "But for those who are, it is a Templar's duty to aid them."

     "Aid them."  Carver's face had gone neutral.  He took Cullen's hand again, and when Cullen nodded, resumed that steady pull.  "I hear more than _aiding_ mages happened at the Gallows, under Meredith."

     Having known this was coming, Cullen did not tense again.  "Yes.  Things happened which I am ashamed to have condoned -- or allowed by neglect.  That is why I turned on her, finally; she had lost her way.  And it is why I accepted the mantle of Viscount, when the nobles offered it to me.  I did not want it."  He sighed, half in relief as the soreness in his shoulder began to fade, and half in weariness.  "It is the penance I must do, however, for my failure to put the Maker's will before that of any mortal.  Now, as the city's ruler it is my duty to see to it that no one is mistreated, and that all progress, regardless of their circumstances of birth."

     Carver eased Cullen's arm back down, letting him rest again.  "Huh."  He was silent awhile, then apparently decided to change the subject.  "Better?"

     "Yes.  My thanks."  Cullen cautiously stretched the arm, exhaling.  "I shall have to spar with you regularly, to get back into shape.  If you do not mind."

     Carver's grin was a white flash in the firelit room.  "'Course I don't mind.  You think I want to end up going soft, like you?"  He hesitated, smile faltering just a little in a way that was almost shy, and then he jerked his chin at the shoulder he'd been hauling on.  "Does sound like you could use a good right arm, here."

     Pleased, Cullen smiled, then dared to brush his knuckles against Carver's right hand, where it still lay on his thigh.  "Yes.  That is true."

     Carver blinked, and Cullen did not mistake it:  he actually blushed.   _Ah, so you are not so worldly and jaded as you seem_. 

     It was a simple thing, and the right moment.  He leaned forward, wanting, and Carver held still, a bemused look on his face.  He did not draw back when Cullen paused and touched his mouth with a fingertip.

     "I am not certain I dare kiss you," Cullen said.  "I sorely want to, but..."

     Carver's grin was lopsided, but also an open invitation.  "I won't tempt your virtue this time, I promise."

     "You have already broken that promise.  I am tempted now."

     Carver's eyebrows rose nearly to his hairline, and then he laughed softly.  "Maker, I thought it was just me."

     Then he stopped laughing, as Cullen kissed him silent.  And though Cullen tried not to deepen the kiss or let any of his un-virtuous thoughts take root, it happened again anyway.  Suddenly he was maddeningly aware of the softness of Carver's mouth, and the twitch of his hand against Cullen's, and the warmth of his nearness.  He felt the shift of it when Carver rose from his heels and moved to get more comfortable, pushing Cullen's thighs apart to make room, and he lost himself utterly when Carver's teeth grazed his lower lip, tugging it to open.

     Then suddenly Carver's hands were on his hips, coaxing him closer, and suddenly Cullen had _moved_ closer, bending to keep in contact with Carver's exquisite mouth, and suddenly one of Carver's hands was under his shirt, stroking down his belly and toying with the laces of his trousers --

     -- and Cullen pulled back, taking a deep breath.

     There was a pause.

     "Does it have to be love?"  Carver's voice was low, velvet; Cullen shivered all over.  "Can't we settle for a good solid 'I admire you greatly,' then fuck each other stupid on the floor?"

     Cullen let out a weak laugh and licked his lips, tasting a hint of lingering Carver.  "No."

     "What about... just this?"  Carver's fingers splayed down the fastening of Cullen's trousers, and Cullen stiffened -- in more ways than one -- when his hand found what it sought.  "You like my mouth."

     Oh, yes.  "No."

     Carver sighed in frustration, shutting his eyes for a moment.  "I want to _taste_ you."

     Oh dearest Maker.  "N-no."  And he could not stand much more of this.  The Chant said there was no shame in avoiding temptation, where the will was already weak.  So he took Carver's hands, holding them firmly away from his body, but lifting them to kiss the fingers.  "Please."

     Carver sighed, but moved away and got to his feet.  And Cullen studiously did _not_ notice the way Carver had to adjust his trousers, as he did so.

     "I don't get it," Carver said, pacing away.  Cullen felt every inch of distance between them like an ache.  "I really don't.  Fuck's sake, I've known you _one day_ , and I want you so much I can hardly think.  How's that happening?"

     Cullen took a third deep breath, crossing his legs -- with a brief adjustment in his own turn -- and folding his hands in his lap.  "Would you rather be unable to stand the sight of me?"

     "Maybe."  Carver stopped and glanced back at him over his shoulder.  "I've been with people I didn't like much before.  I know how to deal with that.  They can't do anything to me that I don't let them do.  You, though..."  He scowled.  "I don't know what to think about you.  I don't know how to feel."

     "When you do know," Cullen made himself say, as gently as he could, "I am at your disposal."

     Carver looked back at him, frowning, uncertain, for a long moment.

     Then he murmured, "'Night," and headed for his rooms.

#

     "The guard captain has been replaced," Bran announced as Cullen came into his office.  It was the next day, but Cullen had not expected even Bran to resolve the matter so quickly.  The man was a marvel of efficiency.  "We set Serrah Jeven loose with a small severance, and I have temporarily appointed one of Jeven's officers -- a rather stolid fellow by the name of Donnic Hendyr -- to the role.  Good man, well-liked, by the book but unafraid of dirtying his hands."  Bran examined his own immaculate nails and hands.  "It is a trial period, over the next six months, though he does not know this.  If he proves himself, the role is permanently his."

     "Your competence continually impresses me, Bran.  My thanks for attending to this so quickly."

     "All that I do is for Kirkwall, my lord Cullen."  Bran inclined his head meaningfully, and with this as warning, Cullen could brace himself.  "To that end... I trust last night went well?  It did seem that you and the young Lord Amell had, er, connected, when you sparred together yesterday."

     Maker's Breath.  Bran was having him watched again.  Cullen sat down at his desk chair, carefully schooling his face to expressionlessness.  "We had dinner last night, yes.  It went well." 

     "And after?"  Bran kept his expression the picture of politeness.

     "After."  Cullen steepled his fingers, glaring, and daring him to press the issue.

     Bran took a deep breath, pinched the bridge of his nose, then let the breath out with a sigh -- all gestures Cullen had grown to think of as Bran's "taking the gloves off" preparation.  "Viscount Commander, I appreciate that this is a delicate matter to you, but it is my duty to remind you that far, far more than your -- virtue -- is at stake.  This treaty -- "

     "I have married him, Bran."  Cullen set his jaw.  "With unseemly haste, to the point of offending him; did you not see that?"

     "Yes, he does seem the touchy sort."  Bran shifted, looking uneasy, by which Cullen judged that he was now about to say something _truly_ offensive.  "My lord, has it occurred to you that there may be a _reason_ Fereldan has sent a man like this to you?  I begin to believe that they do not want this alliance."

     _A man like this?_   Cullen set his jaw and sat back, propping his elbows on the arms of his chair and steepling his fingers. "Explain."

     Bran sighed and got to his feet, pacing with his hands behind his back.  "It is something I have considered since we saw him, my lord.  If Fereldan's queen truly desired an alliance -- one which must be sealed by a union between the noble houses of both lands in order to entwine our interests -- then she would have sent someone... biddable.  Someone who would not begrudge you the right of the marital bed."

     _We should probably get this over with_.  Cullen shifted uneasily, and hoped that Bran did not notice.  "He has not refused.  He simply insists upon not being treated as chattel."

     Bran made a sound of frustration and stopped, gesticulating as he spoke.  "He _is_ chattel, my lord!  For the Maker's sake -- you are Viscount, now, you cannot indulge this political... _naïveté_.  Listen to me:  Queen Anora is weak.  She failed to produce a legitimate heir to the Theirin line, failed to preserve Maric's bastard -- some say deliberately -- and her father was a traitor.  To survive as queen, she must appease her local Chantry and Templars, who are loyal to the Divine, and dislike Kirkwall because of it.  She must also appease her mages, who chafe to join the rebels; with her army decimated by the Blight, she needs every bit of magical and martial strength to keep Fereldan safe from invasion.  They _like_ Kirkwall because you fought Meredith, and because of the reforms you've enacted at the Gallows.  So what better way to appease both than by _appearing_ to comply with the terms of the alliance -- then sending you a husband who is so socially inept, so indelicate, so _offensive_ that the marriage is doomed from the very beginning?  While the marriage lasts, the alliance lasts; if it fails, Anora can walk away with her hands clean!"

     "I do not intend to divorce him,"  Cullen said tightly.  "Marriage is a lifetime commitment in the eyes of the Maker -- "

     "If it is legitimate.  But if you never lie with him, my lord, then in six months the marriage is _annulled_ , by Chantry law!  Do you see?  You _must_ consummate it, and soon, or Anora will surely find some way to wriggle free of the whole thing."

     _Maker, he's right._   Cullen rocked back in his chair, stunned, and deeply troubled.

     In the silence as Cullen thought, Bran took a deep breath.  "I have studied the marital laws of Fereldan.  They take a rather dim view of marriage between those of the same make, but there is provision for proving consummation even where virgin blood and pregnancy are impossible.  Should certain organs of _yours_ enter certain orifices of _his_ , or vice versa, or if certain secretions should mingle -- "

     "Oh, bloody Maker, must we discuss this?"  Cullen pushed to his feet in agitation.

     Bran pressed on, doggedly.  "Yes, my lord.  Those methods are the surest way to prove carnal knowledge, but there is even an argument to be made for lesser contact.  Toothmarks or finger-scratches in certain places on the body.  A finger, a _tongue_ \-- any part of you, in any part of him in a way that cannot be read as merely platonic!  A mage can read the aethers and determine whether suitable contact has occurred; when we can prove it in court, we have her.  Simply inflict any of this on him -- "

     Cullen had turned to pace in the narrow space behind his desk; now he stiffened and turned back.  " _Inflict?_   Bran..."

     Bran came forward, his face set and more angry than Cullen had ever seen.  "If you cannot bring yourself to touch him, try," he said, hotly.  "Imagine him beautiful, graceful, small and lithe, whatever you must to arouse yourself.  And if _he_ will not yield, there are ways -- "

     Cullen shook his head, breathing hard with the effort of restraining his temper.  "I will not hear this."

     "I take no pleasure in it, Viscount Commander, but it is my duty to say!"  Bran leaned on Cullen's desk.  "If he does not come to your bed willingly, there are ways that even a strong man can be made biddable for a night.  Certain substances in his food or drink -- "

     " _Enough!_ "  Cullen shouted the words; he was shaking, his fists clenched.  "Speak another word and I shall throw you out of this office myself!"

     At this Bran flinched, and Cullen saw his face harden.  Then he straightened, lips pressed together and white -- but he did not speak.

     "Now," said Cullen, taking a deep breath; the urge to throttle the man was still powerful.  "I think it best if we adjourn for the afternoon, Seneschal.  We can begin again tomorrow morning.  Pray I have forgotten your rash words by then."

     Bran's jaw flexed.  "Indeed, Viscount Commander.  I bid you a good afternoon."  Then he turned with almost military precision, marched to the door and opened it to leave -- and stopped, inhaling a little.

     Cullen frowned and stepped to the corner of the desk so that he could see through the door too -- and his stomach dropped, as he saw Carver sitting in the plush chair there.  His legs were crossed, his chin propped on one fist, and his blue eyes might have been chips of diamond in the flint of his face.  By this Cullen realized at once that he had been there for some time, and heard everything.

     Bran threw a quick, wary look at Cullen, which might have been an apology, or perhaps an _I told you so_.  Whichever it was, he walked through the library and out of the suite without doing more than nodding to Carver.  Carver ignored him, hard gaze fixed on Cullen.

     "Carver," he said, coming out of the office.  He trailed off as Carver stood, his shoulders tight. He would not look at Cullen.

     "I would've done you in a heartbeat before I heard that," he said, very softly.  "I mean, you're not bad looking.  I actually _liked_ you."  He shook his head, almost to himself, as if amazed at his own gullibility.  "Almost bought your bullshit about wanting more than a tumble, too.  But I guess if you've got to do it with an offensive, indelicate, _ugly_ clod like me -- "

     "Carver, for the Maker's sake, I didn't -- "

     " -- you might as well sweet-talk him so as to make it more enjoyable, right?"  The glare that he threw at Cullen made him flinch, so much hate there was in it.  "Well, I'll not be Anora's joke, and your fucking seneschal doesn't have to dose me up with lust potions or whatever.  You want me, anytime, leave me a note or something, and I'll turn up in your rooms and fuck you blind.  But don't pretend anymore that you actually _want_ me, right?"  The muscles along his jaw flexed, and Cullen's heart constricted as he saw _hurt_ in the man's face.  It was almost indistinguishable from the anger... but it was there.  "'Course, if you'd rather hold out for a better match, just leave me the Void alone and I get to go home in six months."

     And before Cullen could find his tongue, or even begin to try, Carver turned and shoved open the library door so hard that the guard beyond yelped when it slammed against the wall.  By the time Cullen pulled himself together and hurried out onto the landing, Carver was already halfway down the Keep's foyer steps, ignoring the stares of all the supplicants who had gathered in the hall to await Cullen's audience hours.  Cullen could not call after him, not without making a scene -- and so he could do nothing but stare in horror as Carver vanished through the Keep's front doors.

     And then Cullen did not see him again for a month.


	3. Chapter 3

_"Carver," Cullen said.  He lay beneath Carver, pulling him down, his face open, eyes dark with wanting.  "Please."_

_"Please what?"  He ran a fingertip along the bottom edge of Cullen's lip, coaxing, and Cullen's mouth opened eagerly.  When he slid a fingertip in, Cullen blushed -- but his tongue curled to draw Carver in further, and his cheeks hollowed as he suckled, and his eyes half-lidded as if it was he and not Carver who felt the pull of that all the way down below.  Shivering, light-headed, Carver licked his lips and breathed, "What do you want from me, Cullen?"_

_"Only what I already own, my love."_

     Carver started upright in the cold darkness of the room, groaning and pressing his face into his palms almost before he registered that he'd been dreaming.  _Fuck_.

     Or no fucking, rather, because he was alone.  Again.  He'd come home to sleep in his bed at the Keep, which he'd taken care to do at least once a week so he could check to see if Cullen had left the expected note.  Or to give the man an opportunity to just walk in and tumble him, if that was how he'd rather handle things.  Thus far, however, there'd been nothing.

     Well.  Not _nothing_.  Lowering his hands, Carver stared again at the box that he could see through the open doorway of his bedroom, where it lay on his sitting-room table.  There had been no note with it, no decoration, but inside the box was a wide gold ring, perfectly sized to fit Carver, unadorned but for an inscription on its inner surface:  _I am very glad to have you here._   A wedding ring, since they'd exchanged none during the brutally quick ceremony itself.

     Carver glared at the flaming thing, which of course he'd left on the table where it belonged.  But.

     But.

     The dream had left him in a state.  Sighing in frustration, he rolled over and took care of himself quickly beneath the covers, then got up to rinse his hands in the basin of washwater on the stand nearby.  No sense letting the servants think he couldn't get Cullen out of his sodding head, even if that was true. 

     Then he went back to bed, slept restlessly, and got up before dawn to leave the Keep before anyone tried to waylay him with waving-out-of-carriage-windows lessons, or whateverthefuck a Viscount's husband was supposed to do with his time.  And indeed, as he stepped out of his suite to leave the next morning, he thought he'd made a clean getaway -- until Cullen stepped out of his rooms at the same time, and both of them froze.

     "'Morning," Carver blurted, half in polite reflex and half just because he couldn't think of anything snide to say.

     "Carver," Cullen said, looking a little stunned.

     "Right, then."  Nodding, Carver turned to go, trying his damnedest to make this casual and at a good pace, so it wouldn't look like running.  Even if it was.

     "Carver -- "  He heard Cullen's armor jangle a few steps, though he stopped following Carver after a moment.  "Carver, please, wait.  Do you not -- Maker."

     Frowning, Carver stopped and glanced back at him.  Cullen stood with one hand upraised, the silliest look of anxiety on his face, and something about this both troubled and irritated Carver.  Why the Void was Cullen still bothering with the charade? 

     So Carver put a hand on his hip and lifted his chin, belligerently.  "Do I not what?"

     "Do you not wish to... talk?"  Cullen looked away for a moment, clearly groping for words.  He took a deep breath.  "I feel I owe you an explanation."

     It took Carver a moment to unclench his teeth.  "Only one thing you owe me," he said, and when Cullen's face tightened as he realized what Carver meant, Carver smiled and spread his arms.  "Want to do it now?  Probably don't have to take off all your armor, even.  I don't have any oil handy, but I could suck you off, yeah?  Any part of you in any part of me, and all."

     "Carver, please."  The look of disgust in Cullen's expression was like a slap in the face.  Even the idea of coming in Carver's mouth revolted him?  Fine, then.

     "Well, I'll be back in a week, if you change your mind."  He pivoted and walked out, not bothering to pretend that he was in a hurry this time.  But Cullen did not call after him again.

#

     Carver had expected to hate all of Kirkwall -- and he did hate most of it.  The city stank worse than Denerim, which was something he hadn't actually thought possible.  To the dogshit and vomit-stench he was used to, however, Kirkwall had added the more complex layering of human shit (or maybe that was elven) and rotten fish.  Worse, the city was much bigger than Denerim, which meant that all its problems were bigger:  instead of a few homeless squatters in the market, Kirkwall had a whole additional city of them in its sewers.  Instead of a small Chantry full of addled older knights and easily-distracted sisters, Kirkwall had a whole island of fanatical bastards, young and violent and -- since there was no Chantry anymore -- kept in check only by the fact that their leader was the worst of them all.  Or so the rumor had it.

     And instead of his brother to run things -- Garrett-fucking-wanker-Hawke, Amell scion and Arl of Denerim -- Kirkwall had its Viscount Commander.

     Yeah.  Plenty of things to hate in Kirkwall.

     Still, Kirkwall had a few good features.  He'd spent a week sleeping at the Blooming Rose, which had nice beds and good drinks but which ate through the stipend Garrett had given him at an alarming rate.  Then Lusine had said something about a substantial discount if he was interested in a bit of "consulting" on the side, and a woman had offered him two sovereigns for no apparent reason, and one of the whores had offered him a free "tasting"... and abruptly he'd realized it was time to go elsewhere.  Which had led him to a better place by far:  the Hanged Man, where the drinks were shit and the beds smelled strange, but he could live a month on what a single night cost him at the Rose.

     And better yet, the Hanged Man had _connections_.  Already he'd gotten two jobs as a mercenary.  It was easy stuff, nothing that would bother the local mercenary groups, but it paid well; apparently there was quite the market in town for big Fereldens who knew their way around a sword. 

     And addition to being able to make a living, Carver had discovered something interesting -- 'cause he'd been asking around, after meeting his uncle by accident at the Rose.  The man was a louse and would be no help whatsoever; best thing Gamlen Amell had ever done with his life was write to Mother to confess losing the family fortune and estate, back when it happened.  That was how she'd known not to bring them to Kirkwall when the Blight hit.  But what mattered was that Gamlen Amell had lost the estate _to slavers_ \-- which even seemed to rankle the old man's tattered pride, when Carver had talked to him in his cups.  Slavery was illegal in Kirkwall... which meant the Amell estate was a prize for anyone with the strength to take it back.

     Not that he particularly _wanted_ a mansion.  But if he was to be stuck in Kirkwall, for the Maker's sake, then he might as well be stuck in style.

     So a week after he'd left Cullen standing forlorn in a corridor, Carver found himself sitting in a big stone chair, across a big stone table, from the only dwarf he'd ever met who smiled more often than he scowled. 

     "So you know another blade I can trust?" he asked, taking a swig from the mug of ale the dwarf had given him.  It tasted weirdly like dirt; he fought not to grimace visibly.  The dwarf -- whose name was Varric Tethras, which was at least less garblemouthed than most of their names -- was more than he seemed, of course.  Everyone in the bar had told him that, when he'd asked around about hiring someone.  This was made more obvious by the opulence of Tethras' rooms, which was a subtle thing.  The tapestries and stone statues still stood up against the Hanged Man's tatty plastered walls, after all.  But the plaster in here wasn't cracked, and the worn old floorboards didn't creak, and Carver hadn't spotted a single mouse-hole yet.  That, more than anything else, told Carver that the rumors about Tethras were all true.

     "Depends on what you need to trust them _for_ , Junior," said the dwarf.  He sounded amused.  "To know the pointy end from the pommel?  Got a whole slate of those on standby.  To not shove that pointy end into your back?  That's a taller order.  But I know a couple who might serve."

     Carver nodded, and braced himself.  "How much?"

     "Nothing."

     Carver scowled.  "Bullshit."

     "Stone's truth."  The dwarf grinned, spreading his hands.  "No charge.  Consider this a favor."

     "Why?"

     "Such suspicion!  I'm wounded."  The dwarf put a hand to his breast, melodramatically.  "Because I like you, Junior.  What, can't a man just like you for no reason?"

     _Would you rather be unable to stand the sight of me?_

     Flames.  Irritated, Carver set his jaw.  "Nobody wants something for nothing.  Not in this city."

     "Ah, you're learning how things work in Kirkwall, Junior; glad to see it.  Though I get the sense you're not the average Ferelden fresh off the refugee boat, so maybe you knew that before you came."  Tethras sat back then, propping his elbows on the chair's arms and steepling his fingers in a way that reminded Carver unnervingly of Cullen.  "Or maybe you only figured it out when you arrived here and started to see just what it meant to be attached to the most powerful man in the city.  Am I right?"

     _Oh, bloody Void._   Carver stiffened and fought the urge to reach for his blade.  But Tethras was smiling, relaxed, and it occurred to Carver that if he'd wanted to ransom Carver, or blackmail him, or do whatever people in this town did with their secrets, he could've done it a dozen times over by now.

     "What do you want?" he asked, bluntly.

     "Only for you to survive this little quest of yours." Tethras said this with equal bluntness.  He was still smiling, but there was a pointedness to that smile now.  "After all, if anything happens to you, Kirkwall's alliance with Fereldan fails.  War's bad for business."

     Carver set his jaw.  "Getting really tired of Kirkwallers bleating at me about that damned alliance."

     "Oh, I can imagine.  After all, it's only the lives and deaths of thousands at stake -- including everyone you or I have ever known."  The dwarf sat back, taking a deep, appreciative swig of the ale, while Carver grimaced.  "But do keep making this all about you.  Go on.  I'll wait."

     Irritated, Carver got to his feet, pacing away and trying to rein in his temper before he said or did something really unfortunate.  "I'm aware of my -- _duty_.  And I've offered to do it, lots of times.  But Cullen wants -- "  And then he cut himself off hard, literally biting back on the words so that his teeth made an audible click, because Maker help him, he'd actually been about to confess everything to this squirrelly little arse.

     "Too much information," the dwarf said, raising his hands.  "Sorry to hear the Viscount Commander's asked for something, uh, _improper_ of you, but that's not something I could help you with, anyway.  What I _can_ do is make sure you've got what you need to get what you want, which increases the chance you'll at least survive to work out your marital issues later." 

     Carver clenched his fists, more irritated. "He's not like that."

     "Who's not like what?"

     "Cullen."  Carver folded his arms.  "He's not -- not some kind of -- pervert, if that's what you're thinking.  So don't go telling everybody that he is, for sod's sake."

     There was a pause, which made Carver turn to glare at Tethras.  The dwarf was, for once, not smiling; in fact, he looked surprised.  "Fine, Junior," he said.  "Not a word of misinformation will pass my lips."

     _And why the Void do I care what anyone thinks of that bastard?_   With a sharp mental jerk, Carver pulled his attention back to the matter at hand.  "So who are these blades you've found?"

     "Well, they're not blades, precisely."

     Oh, what now?  "What are they? Precisely."

     "One's got the fastest knives I've ever seen; the other doesn't need blades to take down her enemies, because she's an unusually powerful apostate mage.  I understand you have some familiarity with that sort of thing."  Tethras smiled.  "I've taken the liberty of hiring them in advance.  They're trustworthy, as long as you don't do anything to piss them off, like kill a bunch of elves in front of the mage, or have bad sex with the knifer.  They're together, by the way, but they share."

     "What the -- "

     Tethras coughed and rode over him.  "When you're ready to begin your assault, meet them at the docks, this pier."  He slid a small scroll down the table; Carver caught it.

     Carver put the other strangeness out of his head and focused on the main problem.  "A knifer and a mage?  Sod's sake, Tethras, I asked for a _blade_."

     Tethras actually looked annoyed.  "Junior, I don't know how things go in Fereldan, but here in Kirkwall you have to _diversify_ if you want to make good on your investment.  You can't just whack everything with a sword.  What if you get in there and the slavers have mages?"

     Carver snorted.  "I'd Silence them."  He'd learned a few things from Alistair, at least.

     "And say they're Templars?  All the ones Cullen threw out of the Gallows because they'd gotten a taste for treating people like chattel had to go _somewhere_.  And say there's Carta dwarves?  Fast little bastards, those casteless; I've seen them stab a swordsman in the back before he finished a single swing.  And say -- "

     "All right, all right, I take your point.  But it'd be _nice_ to have another warrior on hand.  You know, in case someone stabs me in the back before I finish a swing?"

     "Hmm.  Good point."  Tethras thought a moment.  "There's a Tal-Vashoth who might -- "

     "No.  I can deal with Qunari, if they'll deal with me, but not Tal-Vashoth."  He hadn't fought alongside Sten for the better part of a year without learning a few things.  "They don't have honor."

     "Fair enough.  I do know an elf in Hightown -- "

     "An elf in Hightown!"  It sounded like the punchline of a bad joke.

     " -- but he's a bit... broody.  And since you're a bit _moody_ \-- "

     "I am _not_ \-- "

     " -- and since the goal after all is to keep you alive, I think putting the two of you together would be rather like introducing fire to Qunari powder:  very pretty for a minute, and a world of hurt thereafter."  The dwarf sighed.  "I'll scout around, see if I can find someone better.  Give me a few days."

     Carver took a deep breath.  "Fine.  I'll go meet the knifer and the mage, meanwhile.  But I still say nobody does anything for free.  What is it you really want?  Tell me straight."

     The dwarf shrugged.  "There's a chance you and the Viscount Commander might work things out.  If you do, it'd be nice to have a friend in the Keep."

     "I'm not doing anything criminal for you."

     Tethras looked mildly offended.  "And I wouldn't ask such a thing.  I promise, it'll be nothing that would, ah, reflect badly on your husband."  He smiled.  "Since you're so concerned about him."

     There was nothing Carver could offer in response to that but a bristling glower, and his back as he turned for the door.  "Are we done?"

     "For now, Junior.  Take care of yourself, all right?  Not just for Kirkwall's sake."  Tethras paused to swallow the last of his dirty ale; Carver heard him sigh appreciatively.  "I'm sure Fereldan needs its _heroes_ intact, too."

     Carver paused in the middle of opening the door, blinking.  He turned back, but Tethras had already moved to pick up a big heavy tome from a nearby shelf, and didn't seem to be paying attention.

     In no little amount of confusion, Carver left.

#

     He visited the docks that day, and was a bit taken aback to learn that his knifer was a raider ship captain.  The mage was her first mate, which was sort of hilarious because she was the dottiest elf Carver had ever seen -- and then he noticed the scars on her hands, and the marks on her face, and realized she was Dalish.  A Dalish _blood mage_.

     Then again, he'd travelled with stranger.

     But it was time for him to spend a night at the Keep again, so he steeled himself and headed back to Hightown as evening fell.  Every guard along the way recognized him, of course; after what had happened to Jeven, Carver suspected they all took quizzes on spotting Carver in different states of dress, with different haircuts, and probably with full-face helmets on.  The servants bowed too as he came in, and one of them immediately scurried away as he passed, by which he gathered that Cullen had left word to be notified when Carver next came.  Good, then; maybe they could finally get the business part of this marriage done and over with.

     But when Carver got into his rooms, the note that awaited him had nothing to do with consummation.  Instead it sat atop a long wooden case on his sitting-room table, beside the ring he hadn't taken.  When he opened the envelope, the note within was in an angular, terse hand, and read simply:

> _An artist can be hampered by the lack of fine canvas or good paint. I pray that you are safe, my warrior, and offer you this with neither expectation nor disrespect._
> 
> _-C_

     _I'm not yours, you wanker,_ Carver thought, his lip curling into a snarl as he threw the note aside and opened the case.  _And you won't make me fall for this shit again, no matter what you --_

     Then he got the case open, and inhaled.

     Oh.

     _Oh_.

     The sword that lay upon the case's velvet was old.  Carver could feel the weight of years upon it, see the glossy patina on the blade which meant blood ground so deeply into infinitesimal warps and wefts of the metal that no amount of cleaning would ever get it out.  Someone had filigreed designs into its crossguard that looked like nonsense and felt like enchantment; someone more recent had re-wrapped its grip with good black-dyed chamois, soft as butter.  Carver could not quite help reaching for that grip, or lifting the sword to feel the perfection of its weight, or sighting down its fuller to see how arrow-straight it was.  He tested its edge with the gentle press of a finger and shivered at the instantaneous bite of pain, then held it in guard-stance, in attack-stance, in overhead-swing and parry positions.

     Oh, Maker and His Bride.  It was the most magnificent sword he had ever had the privilege to hold.

     And it _hurt_ , by all the heretic gods and the dwarven Stone, to put the thing back in its case.

     He was still staring down at it when there was a knock at the door.  "Carver?"

     Cullen. 

     Carver stared at the door dully.  He could not think.  It had been a cruelty of the highest order for Cullen to give him this sword.  So he did not answer, instead trying to will Cullen away with all the hatred he could muster.  One problem, though:  he couldn't muster much.

     There was a shadow beneath the door; it did not move at Carver's silence.  "Carver."  When another moment passed; Carver heard a sigh.  "Please... just listen, then, if...  Just for a moment."  There was a brief sound of movement, and something pressed against the door.  When Cullen spoke again, the door's wood reverberated with his voice.  "I did not lie when I spoke of what I wanted from you, Carver.  Let others talk of contracts and alliances, but the Maker comes first for me, and... and marriage is...  I -- oh, Andraste.  I don't know how to say this."  A dull thud against the door, where his head would be, if he'd leaned it against the heavy wood. 

     Carver pivoted toward the door, and took a step.

     "This is madness."  Cullen sounded amazed at himself.  "I have known you for a day altogether, and kissed you only thrice.  Yet since you left, I have not managed to pass a night without thinking of you.  I do not know what that means.  I often wonder...  Do you think of me, Carver?"

     _I do_ , thought Carver.  He took another step.

     At his silence, however, Cullen sighed.  "There is nothing I can say that will convince you of my sincerity.  I know this, for you are a man of honor and this... this situation...  It is a dishonorable thing that we have done to you, Carver Hawke, buying and selling you like meat, if for the price of a nation rather than money.  I have never before thought of marriage as an ugly thing, but... I see now that it can be, when not entered into wholeheartedly by both parties, or for material reasons."  Another pause.  "You will not give it, I know, but... I ask your forgiveness."

     Carver stepped closer.  He was near the door now, close enough to hear Cullen inhale, and hesitate before speaking again.

     "If it means Kirkwall's doom, I swear that I shall never touch you in mere lust.  And the choice of consummation -- that is yours, Carver.  Perhaps it has been high-handed of me to declare that you must wait when clearly you want me; I compound the original error of treating you like chattel, and your wishes as secondary to my own.  It is only that --  I just want -- "

     He faltered silent again.  Carver stood just on the other side of the door now, staring at the old wood as if he could will it aside.  Yet he could not bring himself to simply reach up and turn the handle to open it.

     Cullen inhaled again.  "Maker help me.  This is terrifying."

     Yes, it was.

     "I think I have grown to love you already."  The words were soft, almost a whisper.  "If such a thing can happen so quickly, then that is what I feel.  I do not understand. It is what I claimed to want, and yet...  I have no idea what to... what to _do_ with this feeling.  I cannot just let it sit within me.  I must gnaw upon it constantly, like a mabari's bone.  Does that make sense?"

     _Yes_ , Carver mouthed, pressing his hands against the door frame.

     "And here I am talking to a door.  Flames."  A soft, bitter laugh followed this.

     Carver closed his eyes.  He could think of nothing to say.  But he could move his hand.  He could hesitate, and then press it against the door, right around where Cullen's head probably rested.  He could relax, and let his whole body slump forward to follow.

     The door was well-made; if it moved, the movement was slight.  Yet Cullen inhaled, sharply, as if he felt Carver there.

     There was a moment of silence.  Abruptly Cullen pulled away from the door and walked off.  Carver heard his footsteps tap down the hall, and another door opened and closed; he was gone.

     Carver pushed himself away from the door, slowly. 

     He took a step back, then another, then took a deep breath.  Thus braced, he turned and went back to the sitting-room table, where Cullen's two gifts still sat.  For a moment his hand went to the ring; he drew a finger along its smooth curve.  But then he stopped. 

     He was being a fool again.  He had done it before, so many times:  panting after Peaches when she really wanted Garrett; falling for a doomed would-be Warden on the eve of a doomed battle at Ostagar; daring to think there could be something between him and Zevran just because the elf had given him a pity-fuck.  Every time it had been the same:  a hint of hope, maybe a night of pleasure, and nothing but pain thereafter.

     He lowered his hand.  Not the ring.

     But he did pick up the sword.  It felt like home in his hand -- the home he'd never truly had, and did not have now, not in Denerim or even in Lothering.  And yet... it was also the home he'd never missed, not while his father had been alive.  Back when his family had been whole, he'd been happy wherever they lived:  a Redcliff ledge-house, a shack near a Brecilian swamp, an Amaranthine hovel, the roads in between.  That was what the sword felt like:  contentment.  Peace, regardless of circumstance.  The strength that comes from within.  He held its hilt to his breast and thought, _Mine_.

     When the image of Cullen's face came to his mind in response to this thought, he did not know if this was a warning, a promise, or a prayer.


	4. Chapter 4

     With the door to his quarters safely shut behind him, Cullen slumped against it, gradually sliding to the floor.  He was shaking too hard to keep his feet, anyhow.  And against his best judgment, against every bit of intuition that he possessed, he listened, and hoped for the sound of footsteps in the corridor beyond the door.  A knock.  Anything.  He ached for sound, and was left wanting in silence.

     When enough hours had passed that it was clear neither Carver nor sleep would come, he hauled himself upright and went down to his office so that at least work might take his mind from misery.

#

     Bran walked into the office as he had every morning for the past month:  the picture of pleasantry, a mask he'd needed to endure Cullen's temper since that disastrous confrontation with Carver.  When he saw Cullen's face this time, however, he stopped and rocked back on his heels, pleasantry giving way to shock.

     "I did not lie with him," Cullen snapped, preemptively.  "I have merely poured my heart at his feet, and let him stomp through the resulting puddle; and _will you_ leave off staring at me for _one minute_?"

     Bran twitched and looked away, moving to take his customary seat.  By the time he had done so, he'd mastered his face.  "Would it give you any comfort to know, my lord, that the sword was gone from his rooms when the servants went in to clean this morning?"

     Cullen blinked.  That... did give him comfort, actually.  But -- he frowned.  "Not the ring."

     "Not the ring."  When Cullen sighed, Bran cleared his throat delicately.  "But the ring had a clear finger-mark upon it, my lord.  He is _thinking about it_."  As Cullen digested this, Bran folded his hands and crossed his legs, smoothing imaginary wrinkles out of his pants.  "He stayed at the Rose for a week and never so much as looked at the whores, my lord.  At the Hanged Man -- " 

     Cullen groaned; he could not bear the idea of Carver sleeping in that den of filth.  Bran smiled thinly, in commiseration.  "At the Hanged Man, the barmaid has propositioned him twice, the bartender once, and he's said no to both.  My contact actually said -- "  And here Bran grimaced delicately.  "He said that among the establishment's customers, there was a whole queue of interested takers giving Lord Amell 'the hungry eye'.  Big strapping Ferelden warriors apparently are all the rage since the Hero of Fereldan ended the Blight -- a fashion trend which I am appalled to discover, mind you.  Yet he turns down their offers, does not seem to notice their longing gazes, gets violently offended at their more persistent flirtations.  They make no headway with him."

     Suddenly agitated, and unsure why he felt this way, Cullen got up to pace.  "And what lesson am I to take from this, Bran -- that he has taste, and no love of venereal diseases?"

     "That he wants something more than mere pleasure." At this, Cullen stopped in his tracks, frowning; Bran sat forward, intent.  "That some part of him takes the vow of marriage as seriously as _you_ do, despite his protests.  That the things you've done have left some impact on him -- and if you but _continue_ , my lord, you can win him."

     Startled, Cullen turned a bemused look on the man.  "Bran?  Are you... _cheering me on_?"

     Bran stopped short of rolling his eyes, but it was clearly a near thing.  "I am thinking of what is best for the Viscount's office, my lord, as I have always done and shall always do.  My mistake before, which I will admit, was in trying to dissuade you from the _gentlemanly_ course..."  He sighed, with more than a hint of exasperation in his voice.  "But alas, to my consternation, you _are_ a gentleman.  So we must do this your way, since that is the only way you will bear."

     Cullen stared at him, and for the first time ever, he found himself almost liking the man.  Shaking his head in amusement, he returned to his seat behind the desk.  "What course of action do you advise, then, Seneschal?"  He sobered.  "For he will not talk to me.  I have tried."

     Bran sat back, pursing his lips in thought.  "Another gift."

     "What?  When my first gift remains a complete failure?"

     "He does not object to gifts in and of themselves, or he would not have taken the sword.  Something about the ring offends him -- but it is pointless to speculate why; the man delights in contrariness."  Bran scowled, though less in irritation and more in thought.  "He is not _just_ a warrior; that is the thing.  So I think...  your next gift must be provocative enough to give him reason to talk to you.  And it should be something that acknowledges the complexity of him, I think."

     "His complexity?"  For some reason, Cullen thought of Carver at the dining table, that night they'd eaten together.  The conversation had been anything but elegant, peppered as it was with Carver's rough language and casual irreverence.  And yet, Cullen had noticed something odd throughout the meal:  as he ate, Carver had no trouble distinguishing his shellfish fork from his dessert fork, or folding his fingers neatly out of the way as he used his knife to cut meat.  Someone -- his Amell mother, no doubt -- had seen to it that he did not have the table manners of a peasant, whatever his upbringing otherwise.

     "He is not a farmboy pretending to be a nobleman," Cullen murmured to himself, inhaling as he finally understood.  "He is a nobleman pretending to be a _farmboy_."

     There was a moment of silence, and in it Cullen blinked to find Bran staring at him in complete consternation.

     Cullen sat forward.  "Consider:  when the Blight came to his land, he did not wait to be conscripted; he volunteered.  When his king was betrayed and that king's son sought to save the land, he did not flee; he _helped_.  Those are a nobleman's duties, Bran, though few of the noble class admit or understand it.  We have granted them the right to shape our societies for the betterment of all, but damned few of them ever _do_ it.  Carver Hawke, however, does." 

     "He -- what?"

     Cullen got to his feet to pace again, excited now.  "He does not have to talk and act as he does, Bran; that is a deliberate thing, calculated to offend!  Those who judge him only on superficialities will be put off -- but those who look beneath the surface of him might, just _might_ , be worth his time."  Cullen folded his arms, certain now.  "He finds more to value in the farmer's honest ways than the nobleman's advantage and airs, so that is what he chooses to be."

     Bran cleared his throat uncomfortably.  "If you say so, Viscount Commander.  But this comes back to a single question, then:  what does a Ferelden farmboy -- one who is such by choice if not birth -- desire above all else?"

     Cullen frowned in thought.  Then blinked, as the answer came to him -- so blindingly obvious a thing that he was shocked at himself for not thinking of it sooner.  Bran clearly had the same thought; he lifted an eyebrow.

     "There are appearances to consider..." he began, but then sighed as Cullen scowled.  "But yes.  Well.  I'll get right on it, my lord."

#

     He thought nothing more of it for the next few days.  It was easier to function, in some ways, when Carver was not in the Keep; then Cullen could actually focus on something besides _What is he doing now?  What is he thinking?  What might I say to him?_   and the like.  He could attend to his paperwork; meet with those nobles who had sufficient influence to merit his direct attention; touch base with Keran, his young Knight Captain, on doings at the Gallows and beyond.  He made little wonder that Bran had finally decided to work with him and not against him on the matter of Carver; it was clear that the city thrived when Cullen was kept happy, or at least productive.

     It helped too, ironically, that there was trouble to focus upon.  The undeclared war between the mages and the Inquisition and the Chantry kept getting worse; now he was hearing rumors of ex-Templars waylaying caravans along the Wounded Coast, ostensibly searching for illegal mages but in truth ransacking the cargoes for valuables and lyrium.  He dispatched a unit of mixed Guard and Gallows Templars to investigate, with a contingent of volunteer Circle Mages to assist in case they got into trouble. 

     But closer to home, his new Guard Captain had brought troubling reports of unrest in Lowtown and Darktown, along with copies of an ugly, hateful flyer decrying the growing influence of Fereldens in Kirkwall life.  _Will you let us all fall to the dogs?_   the worst of the flyers read -- just before Cullen crumpled it in his fist.

     "Unacceptable," he said tightly, seeing his own anger reflected on Captain Hendyr's blunt-featured face.

     "Indeed, my lord," Hendyr said.  He stood at attention before Cullen's desk, which made Cullen rather like the man; he felt like a Templar there, for all that his mission was secular rather than holy.  "I've got people trying to track down the source of this mischief now.  Or sources.  Rumor has it they're a group of some sort."

     "I want them alive," Cullen said, leveling a look at the man.  "Their leaders, at least.  I will want to make an example of them in public court."

     Hendyr sort of shrugged, though Cullen thought he seemed disappointed.  "As you like, messere.  It should be over soon enough, in any case.  My officers have heard there's some sort of dispute between them -- always is, with this sort of rabble.  One group means a sneak attack on the other tonight, through some sort of Darktown secret entrance; hard to know the details.  I mean for my men to be on hand to catch the survivors, regardless."

     "Then I will wish you and your men success, Acting Guard Captain."  He inclined his head, and Hendyr nodded back -- not low enough for propriety, perhaps, but low enough for Cullen's tastes.  And anyhow, Bran was not here to disapprove. 

     Dismissed, Hendyr turned to head for the door.  But as he put his hand on the latch, he paused, frowning a little to himself.  "Only one strange bit about that mess," he said.  "These people _hate_ Fereldens.  But the man who's organizing the attack -- they say he looks like a Kirkwaller, all dark hair and hard eyes, but when he opens his mouth it's pure Ferelden that comes out."

     Cullen froze.  "Is that so?" he made himself say, quietly.

     "Indeed."  Hendyr stretched his shoulders a little, as if limbering up for a fight, but that little frown was still on his face.  "Well, I suppose that's why the others have laid a trap for him, or so they say.  Working with slavers, too, so that'll be the last anyone sees of him outside of Tevinter, I'll wager.  Anyhow, we'll move in as soon as the worst is over, and clean up the mess.  Good evening again, Vis -- "

     "Captain."  Cullen pushed to his feet, slowly.  His hands had begun to shake.  "I am afraid I must impose on your time for a bit longer."

#

     Lowtown was bad enough.  They had gone to the Hanged Man in an attempt to intercept Carver's group, but the common room was empty of all but the usual ruffians and charlatans, and one half-addled Templar who squinted at Cullen as if trying to remember who he was.  (Cullen nodded to him nevertheless.  The ones whose minds had begun to go still deserved respect for their sacrifice.)  Alarmed to find the Viscount Commander in his humble establishment, the bartender had taken them to Carver's room and let them in, but it was empty, and there was no clue of where he'd gone.

     "He's been living like this?" asked one of the Guardswomen, before Hendyr glared her silent -- but it was on all of their faces, Cullen noted.  And what must they think, that the nobleman Cullen had married felt it necessary to  live in this hovel rather than be with him?  Staring at the lumpen bed and the cracked walls, hearing the skitter of mice within them, Cullen himself could only sigh.

     "He is a stubborn man," he replied, looking at the room's desk, which was little more than a rickety table.  Carver had carelessly tossed a red sword-cleaning silk here, and on impulse Cullen picked it up.  He lifted it to his face and breathed the scents of oil and old metal, and just a whiff of what he had come to think of as Carver's scent; the lattermost made his belly tighten with anxiety.  "Captain.  You said this fracas was to happen in Darktown."

     Hendyr looked reluctant as he turned to answer.  "Yes, but we don't know where, and Darktown is extensive..."

     "Then we shall search it."  He looked up, and when Hendyr's face showed plain horror, he forced himself to smile.  "Do not fear, Guard Captain.  I have no intention of dying on your watch.  But I do not mean to see my husband die, either."

     That did it; Hendyr flinched.  "A fine point, messere.  To Darktown, then."  And so they went.

     Cullen had never liked Darktown.  He disliked that it even existed, on principle; he disliked that so many of his own people had ended up here after fleeing the Blight; and he disliked most of all that its people had sheltered the Abomination -- the rogue mage who had destroyed the Chantry and triggered Meredith's slaughter of half the Gallows mages.  Their resistance was understandable; apparently the Abomination had offered free magical healing to the city's poorest denizens, and that had won him admirers who remained loyal even after he'd caused the deaths of hundreds.  Cullen had attempted to counter that support by having flyers posted which offered free healing during certain hours of the week to anyone who could make it to the Gallows -- but per Keran's latest report, no Darktown dweller had yet taken the offer.  It would take many, many years for Kirkwall to begin trusting its Templars again.

     But as they walked through the reeking corridors of the place -- slowly, as there were rotting stairways, piles of ordure, and worse at every turn -- Cullen began to think that his gesture had simply not been enough.  How could a man who could not walk (he noted as they passed one) make it to the docks to catch the ferry?  And when they passed a wary family crouched beside a fire, turning a spit which unmistakably held a dog's carcass -- Maker's Breath -- Cullen realized no one here would be able to afford the fare, anyhow. 

     When this mess was over, he resolved privately, he would ask for volunteers among the mage healers, and send them into Darktown to make the offer in person.  With Templar guards, of course, so they would have no trouble.  Perhaps if the people here could see mages and Templars working together, serving man as Andraste had commanded...

     "My lord."  Pulled from his reverie, Cullen looked up and saw Hendyr waving from the head of the knot of Guards.  He pushed to the front to find Hendyr looking grim.  "We're making no headway.  No one's seen them, when we ask -- and even if they had been seen, no one would tell us.  We are too hated here."

     "We must keep trying, Captain.  I understand that -- "

     "Watch it!"  At the sound of swords unsheathing among the guards on their right flank, Cullen tensed and put a hand on his own, half-reaching for the shield he'd worn in lieu of his usual cloak.  Then he saw what had alarmed the men.

     "Oh, for the Maker's sake," Cullen snapped, pushing through; the men had gone into defensive stances around a gap in a nearby wall.  The growl from within _was_ blood-curdling -- as befitted a full-grown mabari, which Cullen could now see crouched just within the opening, watching them with baleful eyes.  Still...  "This is a _dog_ , gentlemen and ladies.  And this one will not harm you unless you harm it."

     "That's one of them mayberries," said one of the men, clearly more afraid of the dog than he was of annoying his king.  "Seen one tear another fellow's throat out, once."

     " _Mabari_."  Cullen shook his head.  They were wasting time.  "And anyone foolish enough to offend one of them deserves what he gets, same as any who challenge a greater warrior.  This is _not_ what we are _here_ for -- "

     And then he had to turn away, because he was shaking with the frustration of it all.  Carver could be somewhere down here, dying in this filth or being dragged off to Tevinter in chains, and here he was soothing these Kirkwallers' irrational fears!

     Something nudged him, and Cullen tensed, whirling.  But it was only the dog, who had edged out of its hole to whuffle at his hand.  Or rather, at his wrist, where he'd tied Carver's oiling silk without quite thinking about what he was doing.  Puzzled, Cullen held his arm out, noting absently that the mabari was thin but otherwise hale enough -- quite an achievement given that people down here preyed upon them.  Then the dog cocked its head at him with what could only be called a shrewd look, and whuffed in a querying sort of way.

     _Oh, Maker, I am as much a fool as these Kirkwallers!_   Inhaling, Cullen straightened and looked the dog in the eye.  "Yes," he said to that query.  "That is who I am searching for.  Have you had scent of him?"

     "What's he doing, talking to a dog?" stage-whispered one of the Guardswomen behind him.

     "He's Ferelden, ain't he?  They _all_ talk to dogs."

     "Yeah, but -- "

     "Shut up!  He can _hear_ you, you arse!"

     The dog whuffed again and pricked its -- _her_ , Cullen noted, spying the teats along her belly -- ears.  Then, unless he mistook his guess, she looked him up and down, plainly assessing.  Whatever it was she sought, she must have found it; after a moment, she waggled the stub of her tail, barked, and disappeared back into the hole.

     Captain Hendyr, who had come up during this, cleared his throat uncomfortably.  "My lord?  Something to, ah, share?"

     Cullen shook his head, bemused.  "I have no idea."

     Suddenly the dog reappeared -- with a puppy dangling from her mouth.  The pup was perhaps six weeks old, and Cullen thought the look on its face was rather long-suffering.  Then with a muffled sort of cheery bark, the bitch skittered past all of them and ran up a nearby set of steps.  When they just stood there staring, she stopped, set the pup down, and barked at them, with an air of impatience.

     Hendyr sort of twitched.  "Did that dog just -- "

     Cullen began to grin, heading for the steps.  "Yes.  Come, Captain; there is little time to waste."

     So with the mabari leading, they hurried through the warren that was Darktown.  Not five minutes later, they reached what looked like a pile of mining debris, in which a steep ladder-stair had been lodged for no apparent reason.  The bitch stopped again, set down her pup, and barked sharply, upward.  Curious, Cullen stepped closer -- and spied what looked like an attic door set into the ceiling.  It was hard to see, painted gray to look like the stone around it, but it was unmistakably a hidden entrance.

     "Well, I'll be tied," said Hendyr, quickly signalling two men with truncheons forward to deal with the door.

     Cullen exhaled.  "You have my thanks," he said, inclining his head to the dog for extra measure.  He had heard that mabari understood human speech, but he felt it important to be clear.

     The dog _shrugged_.  He could have sworn it.  But then when one of the Guards came back to ground, having broken through the door, she picked up her pup and shouldered past him again, scrambling up the ladder so fast that all of them were left speechless in her dust.

     "What the Maker," Hendyr began.

     Well.  "It would seem she has decided to aid us," Cullen said, blinking.  Another impatient bark from above made him laugh.  "And we should not keep the lady waiting."

     At the top of the ladder was a tunnel -- of the kind that many Hightowner homes had, Captain Hendyr whispered as they moved along it with swords drawn.  In the days when the city had been a Tevinter stronghold, apparently all the magisters had had escape tunnels like this, in the event of a slave revolt.  Quite a few of those magisters had been found dead in theirs, after the great revolt of 25 Ancient.  Since then, though, the tunnels had proven far more useful for hiding smuggled goods and contraband, and the occasional tax evader.

     This one had been used recently; sconces along the walls held lit lanterns and torches.  The floor was dusty but held many tracks, and judging by the number of stairs they had to climb as they went along, the tunnel indeed ran all the way to Hightown.  It also had a number of branch-offs that Cullen thought likely -- but when they stopped to consider them, the mabari trotted back and glared at them with such an unmistakable _What are you doing, you imbeciles_ look on her face that they followed her.

     "I do not believe I will ever make fun of the Ferelden love of dogs again," Hendyr muttered, as they finally came to a door.  He signalled the man in the lead, who was listening at the door.  The man signalled back:  there was only silence beyond it.

     The dog, however, had put her pup down for the moment to sniff along the door's bottom edge.  She seemed to be taking a long time about it, which was perhaps why Hendyr sighed and gestured back to the men.  The gesture was something complicated; Cullen would never have used signals so easily-confused among his own men.  It was plainly a signal to proceed, though, as the two Guards crouched, angled their shoulders --

     -- as the dog abruptly put her ears back and shied away from the door, herding her pup back almost frantically --

     -- and Cullen inhaled and raised his shield, realizing what this meant even as the lyrium in his blood tingled a belated warning --

     -- and then the men hit the door in tandem, breaking its lock and one of the hinges so that it swayed wildly as it fell open.  The momentum carried both men through into the large empty room beyond --

     -- and then white lines of runes, like nothing Cullen had ever seen, blazed bright beneath the Guards' feet.  The walls of the corridor in which they stood lit up too, lines even tracking over the broken door.  It was a glyph of some sort, Creation magic but somehow _wrong_ , and though Cullen braced himself and tried to resist it he could feel the magic slithering past his defenses  --

     -- and then everything went white and still.


	5. Chapter 5

     "Noooo." Carver looked around, in wonder.  "Nobody else would attack this place at the same bloody time as us... would they?"

     They stood with weapons ready in the wide, vaulted front hall of the Amell mansion, because Varric had actually agreed with Carver's suggestion of a surprise frontal assault instead of coming in by way of a "secret" tunnel the slavers probably used all the time in smuggling their human cargo.  And there were four of them, despite Varric's failure to find another swordsman for Carver, because Varric had come himself to make up for it -- which was handy, as the slavers had changed the front door lock, and the key that Mother had given Carver didn't work.  Varric had stroked the lock -- that was what it looked like to Carver, anyway, a touch and a brief seductive-sounding murmur, while Isabela whistled at a pretty Guardsman across the square so no one would notice -- and the lock just fell open.  Then they'd rushed in, spells and pointy things at the ready, only to find no one there to greet them.

     People _had_ been in the foyer, though, not long before.  Carver could see tables in the entryway, with benches overturned beside them and tea and beer half-drunk in the cups.  And they could all hear shouts in the mansion's nether and downstairs recesses.  Something had drawn all the slavers into the cellars, and away from the door they should have been guarding.

     "The Void do we do now?"  Carver had really been hoping for more of a sense of accomplishment, at this point.

     "Maybe we could sneak up behind them, if they're all focused on something else, and catch them by surprise that way," said Merrill.  "That always works on rabbits, anyway."

     "Huh," Carver said.  It was true enough.  And if someone else was attacking this place, then that made them allies, in that enemy-of-my-enemy kind of way.  Since those folks had provided a convenient distraction, Carver would return the favor, and take advantage of it.  "Let's go, then, quiet-like.  Since we're hunting rabbits."  He grinned at Merrill; she beamed back.

     And as they went, Carver reluctantly grew more and more grateful that Varric hadn't found him another swordsman.  They were all of them bloody deadly, that was the whole point, but _quiet_ deadliness was not the warrior's art.  So he could only watch in awe as Isabela slit throats and danced away before a drop of blood could splatter on her, and as Varric shot men through the undersides of their chins to pin their mouths shut, and as Merrill did _something_ with her magic and made three men just fall over dead.

     But it was Merrill who twitched and frowned and looked around as they made it through the house and began to descend into the cellars.  "Oh.  Ohhh, that's rather awful."

     "What is it, kitten?"  Isabela shook blood off her knife and leaned in to peer at Merrill, whose eyes had unfocused a little.

     "Blood magic," she said, frowning, "close by.  And he's a healer, I think; never good to cross the streams that way."  Then she blinked at them all, and grimaced-smiled a little.  "Of course, we're not really supposed to do that with Keeper magic, either, so who am I to talk?"

     Carver cursed under his breath.  "Any demons about?"

     "I... I can't be sure."  Her eyes slid away, and belatedly Carver remembered that most mages who used blood magic had their own demons.  Probably hard to fathom someone else's, given that.

     "Fine," he said, tightening his grip on the sword Cullen had given him.  "I've fought demons before.  Stick them enough times and they die, same as anything else.  Let's go."

     In the cellars, it was dark and smelled of mildew and lime and wine gone to vinegar -- which Carver hardly noticed because suddenly they were very busy.  Upstairs there had been less than ten slavers; down here there were some two dozen more, and stealth was no longer possible.  Which was fine by Carver, and a little part of him sang a bit each time he swung Cullen's sword and felt the way the very air slid around it like silk.  With Merrill blazing fire behind him and Isabela carving a path before, and Varric puncturing all the archers and whatnot before they could puncture anyone on their side, it felt much like the old days back in Fereldan.  Fighting Loghain's bastards with Maric's bastard, wading through the filth of darkspawn in the Deep Roads... what had made it bearable, even enjoyable, had been fighting alongside his sister and brother, and people he'd grown to care about more than anyone else.  It had broken his heart when Alistair died, not just because Carver had lost a friend, but because that had been the end of their fellowship.  Everything had gone to the Void, since. 

     Just as well he'd come here and play kissy with some foreign king; there'd been nothing for him, back home.

     Then abruptly Carver was pulled from his reverie, as the swordswoman he'd been feinting around suddenly jerked and stumbled back, screaming -- because out of nowhere there was a _dog_ attached to her leg, savaging her hamstring from behind.  Carver drew back, startled for only a moment, then remembered that they were supposed to be killing each other.  He dispatched the woman with a quick head-lop, then braced himself -- because if the slavers had mabari, then this fight was about to get much harder.

     But as soon as the woman fell, the mabari stopped growling, trotting around her corpse and barking at Carver.  It was not an aggressive bark -- that much he knew from years around his brother's dog -- but there was nevertheless an unmistakable urgency to it.

     "Yeah?"  Slowly, Carver lowered his sword and extended one hand toward the dog, praying he wasn't about to lose it.  She came forward at once, sniffed his hand and nudged it approvingly, then turned and skittered off toward the stairs.  When he did not follow, she stopped and glared at him.

     Okay.  That was plain enough.  They'd cleared the uppermost level of the cellars already, and as Isabela downed the last of the slavers on this second level, Carver waved to them. 

     "Friend of yours, Junior?"  Varric eyed the dog with a certain wary respect.  Its teeth were right at his throat-level.

     "None of mine, but I'll wager she's hoping we'll help someone who is."  Carver started down the steps, following the dog.  "That's how mabari do things when their masters run into something they can't handle."

     "That's not a good thing, is it?"  Merrill asked, anxiously.  "Something a dog like that can't handle?"

     No.  It would not be.  Carver shifted into a defensive stance as they reached the level, and nodded so that everyone would fan out, and be ready.

     The lowest level of the cellars was the smallest, just a single large, dim room that had probably been used for storage.  The remaining five or six slavers had withdrawn to this point, forming a defensive half-circle around some sort of massive glowing rune etched into the floor and walls.  Around it, Carver could see the faint glimmer of a barrier, and the whole room weighed of magic so powerfully that the air felt a little like treacle, and his sword felt heavy as lead. 

     Here was their blood mage:  a man in the ugliest and most ostentatious set of robes Carver had ever seen, and an utterly stupid-looking hat.  Yet he stood calm as they approached, in fact barely paying attention to any of them.  His gaze instead was fixed on ten or twelve downed people within the barrier, most of them wearing the uniforms of the Guard --

     -- and one of them, the only one still upright, wearing the gleaming armor of a Templar, and the circlet of the Viscount Commander.  Carver caught his breath.  _"Cullen?"_

     "Ah, and here's our guest of the hour," said a nauseatingly familiar voice, and Carver tore his eyes from Cullen to see former-Guard-Captain Jeven step forward from the other slavers, hauling a dented old helmet from his head.  He'd come down in the world in other visible ways, too:  his armor was a motley of secondhand pieces, some worn but serviceable and some junk; and it looked as though he hadn't cut his hair in the month since Carver had last seen him.  But the smarmy, vindictive grin on his face was exactly the same.

     "This was for you, of course," he said, jerking a head toward the rune and its prisoners.  "Word had it you'd left the Keep to slum it among the little people; what happened?  Viscount Commander not giving it to you often enough?"  He grinned, as Carver bristled.  "High-class slut that you are, I figured if I teased you enough with flyers and such, made you think Ferelden-haters were dirtying up your fine Amell floors, you'd come running.  But I never thought I'd snag _both_ of the people I hate most in all the world."

     Carver couldn't focus on him.  That Cullen had resisted the rune's power thus far was a testament to his Templar strength -- but he was down on one knee, head bowed, sword and shield dropped in front of him, hands clenched in what might have been a prayer, but for its ferocity.  And something was _wrong_.  Cullen was breathing hard, shaking, muttering to himself.  As he rocked back and forth, Carver spied a mabari puppy pressed against his leg, watching his face with anxious eyes.

     And that sodding mage just kept _looking_ at him.

     "Carver," said Merrill, anxiously, "we have to hurry."

     "I know."

     "If he takes over that man's mind -- "

     "I know!"  Taking a deep breath against fury, Carver stepped forward.  "You -- whatever your name is -- "

     Jeven's face darkened with fury.  "Jeven!  I was the fucking Guard Captain who got _fired_ because of you -- "

     "Right, whatever.  I'll let you live if you walk away and let them all go."

     Jeven spat to one side.  "I'm not letting anybody go."  He turned then, thrusting a sword through the barrier as if it wasn't there, and stopping it against the side of Cullen's neck just before Carver would have charged forward to stop him.  Carver froze.  "Why don't you try giving yourself up to these slavers, and I'll let _you_ live?  I'd buy a turn on you myself -- find out what kind of arse was worth my job -- but I had to promise these people _something_ for their trouble."

     "Really?"  Varric straightened and propped Bianca on one shoulder, which made him look harmless.  Carver had seen how fast he could ready that thing, though; the dwarf wasn't harmless at all.  "You're going to kill _the Viscount_?  You can't be that stupid.  If you're going to sell anyone for a profit, it should be Cullen."  Startled, Carver threw a furious look at him.  "Kill us, keep the Viscount for ransom, and you're sitting on a nice pile of cash."

     Belatedly it occurred to Carver that if Jeven tried to kill them, they'd have him.  The remaining slavers were no match for them.  Varric was trying to goad Jeven into an attack -- but that didn't mean Carver had to like it.

     "I don't give a rat's arse about _profit_ ," Jeven said, reddening.  "This is about revenge.  This is -- "

     "Actually," said the mage, speaking for the first time in a quiet Tevinter accent, "this is _completely_ about profit.  So get that sword away from the Viscount's neck."

     "What?"  Jeven's sword wandered away from Cullen's neck as he glared at the mage.

     The mage sighed, though Carver could hear the note of concentration in his voice.  He hadn't taken his eyes off Cullen once.  "I think a Viscount makes a far more valuable prisoner than some minor barbarian nobleman.  And _this_ Viscount will make a much better thrall and spy, once I finally get his mind under control."  He made a sound of frustration.  "Damned Templars.  But I'll break him soon; it's only a matter of time."

     "You leave him the sod alone!"  Unable to help himself, Carver lunged a step forward, and beside him the mabari growled.  But the other slavers pressed in, and Jeven snarled and put his blade to Cullen's neck again, forcing Carver to step back.

     "That wasn't the agreement," Jeven said to the mage, his voice tight.

     " _I_ agreed to this charade," the mage said, scowling in annoyance, "because you thought you could get Lord Amell here, and I saw an opportunity to get a spy into the Viscount's household.  Congratulations; you've done even better.  But now that I have what I wanted, I'm done with you and the rest of this rabble."

     And nothing could have prepared Carver for the sight of a massive, looming pride demon materializing out of nowhere behind Jeven, eyeing him disdainfully, and then slashing him from neck to nethers with foot-long claws.

     That was when all the Blights of ages past broke loose.

     As Jeven died, gagging and eyes bulging, Carver lunged at the demon, hoping to get in a few good strikes before it built up its power enough to blast them all to flames.  Around him he heard the others shouting too -- the slavers included, as they stumbled back from the demon with wide, terrified eyes.  But all at once, the slavers to a one stiffened and fell, their mouths opening, blood fountaining from their throats.  Shocked, Carver and his crew fell back as this blood swirled to form a grotesque whirlwind around the demon -- which it then sucked into itself like air.  The blood mage had just _fed_ them to it, like they were nothing.  It was the worst thing Carver had ever seen.

     And that blood mage bastard was _still going at_ Cullen.  The mage was baring his teeth now, clenching his fists, and the room throbbed with the driving power of his will.  In the lone glimpse that Carver dared before he had to leap away from the demon's claws, he saw Cullen make a harsh sound and sink in on himself in a huddle.  The puppy began to yap at him, dancing around his face -- and then Carver could spare no more attention for him. 

     Fighting a pride demon was a war of attrition, and the only useful strategy was survival.  Carver knew he had to keep the creature's attention on him; he was the only one who could withstand any of its blows, or the constant drain and burn of its magic.  He could keep the flames from searing his skin by an act of will; Alistair had at least managed to teach him that Templar trick.  Yet Carver had worn nothing but leather armor -- the way he fought, speed usually mattered more than durability -- so it was only a matter of time before he zigged when the creature zagged.  It caught him in the side then, and the blow felt like being whacked by a small tree.  The force of it flung him across the room and into a wall, and for a handful of breaths he lay there, wavering in and out of consciousness.

     _Bloody Maker, I hurt_.  But somewhere beyond the shouts and sizzle of battle, for just an instant, he thought he heard Cullen groan.  That made the breath stick in his throat, and he ground it out through his teeth as he pushed the pain aside and forced himself to his feet.  The pain stubbornly pushed back:  his ribs a dull scream, his head a sick throb.  For a moment it took everything he had not to throw up.

     Then the demon bellowed again, and through a haze Carver could see that it was losing the battle.  Isabela had stuck it at least two dozen times, Varric had got it in both eyes with crossbow bolts, blinding it, and Merril had frozen its left arm.  But it was still fast, and they still needed him, so -- stumbling a little -- Carver lifted his sword and headed back into the fray, shouting when the thing started to turn toward Merrill after one of her fireballs charred its face.

     Then finally it was dying, and as it fell Carver did too, only saving himself from landing on his face by propping himself up with the sword.  The blood mage -- he had to attack now, while the demon's death had weakened him -- _Cullen_ \-- he had to --

     The world rocked.  A pulse of _something_ swept the room, nearly flattening him, and definitely throwing Merrill and the rest to the ground.  But even as Carver clung to his sword and tried desperately to stay conscious, he remembered where he'd felt this before:  Alistair.  This was a Holy Smite, but one far more devastating than anything the Grey Warden had ever unleashed.  But then, Alistair had been only a Templar recruit once; a Templar Knight Commander was a cut above.  _Cullen_.

     Carver lifted his head in time to see that Cullen was on his feet, free of the barrier and with the rune gone dark beneath his feet -- and there was a look of seething rage on his face as he pulled his sword out of the mage's chest.

     "You all right, sweet thing?  I saw that thing rattle your bones."  Isabela crouched beside Carver to help him to his feet -- carefully, as Carver cried out when she pulled too hard and ground his ribs together.  He could not muster an answer for the question, could not think through the ringing in his ears.  Wasn't there something he was supposed to be doing?

     Then a hand cupped his head, which made it hurt worse, but only for a moment.  Because the person attached to the hand was _Cullen_ , and he was _all right_ except that his other hand was bloody, and that made half Carver's pain vanish immediately, amid relief.  Also, he was carrying a puppy for some reason.

     "A concussion, no doubt," Cullen said, and why was Carver suddenly so aware of his thumb, stroking along Carver's jaw?  "We must get you to a healer.  Or have you some talent along those lines, miss?"

     "What?"  said Merrill, sounding very nervous.  "Oh, no, not a lick, sorry."

     "Alas."

     "Fuck are."  The words came out slurred; Carver had to concentrate to make himself intelligible.  "You doing here."

     Cullen smiled wryly.  "Rescuing you, or so I thought until you rescued me."

     There were other voices in the room now as the Guards got to their feet.  Carver tried to focus on them and simply couldn't.  "I need a sodding nap."

     "That would be unwise, I think.  But the good Guard Captain and his men should be able to take care of things here, so let us take you back to the Keep where you can be comfortable."  There was a blurring shift, and Isabela's warmth and softness under Carver's arm was replaced by hard metal and someone taller.  "Come, my love.  I have you."

     "Isabela!  Isn't it cute?  And look at them!  Did you hear him say -- "

     "Yes, kitten, and please don't whisper quite so loud while you're imagining them together; men don't like that."

     Varric's gravelly laugh followed them out.  "Men like it fine, Daisy.  You just have to make a _good_ story out of it.  C'mon; let's head back to the Hanged Man, and talk."

     And with that, Cullen took Carver home.

#

     Carver was not the only one who needed a healer.  Nor were Cullen's the only unexpected guests, when they returned to the private floors of the Keep.

     "The Void is this?" Carver asked, frowning as Cullen walked him into the library of the private floors.  For in addition to the puppy who now gamboled along at Cullen's heels, and her more dignified mother who'd simply attached herself to their party, there were two additional mabari pups sitting in Carver's usual chair.  They looked at each other and then at Carver and Cullen, then at the Darktown mabari, plainly as taken aback as the humans.

     "My apologies, Lord Amell," said Bran as he came in with them, and suddenly Carver knew why the man's eye had begun twitching once he saw the dogs Cullen had brought back.  "They were meant to be a gift to you, from the Viscount Commander."  The look he turned on Cullen was downright baleful, which made Carver feel a little better; it wasn't personal, Bran was just an arse towards everyone.  "I had not expected you to _find your own_.  I suppose I should return these to the breeder, then."

     The pups in the chair looked vaguely alarmed.  "No," Carver said, bemused.  "Let these new ones stay.  The Darktown ones are Cullen's."

     Cullen blinked, carefully helping Carver onto the couch.  "Mine?"  He straightened and glanced down at the pup who sat near his feet; she looked up at him and barked happily.  Her mother crooned fondly, licked the pup's ears, and resumed staring fixedly at Bran, which she'd been doing for some while.

     "Yeah, that one's chosen you."  Carver sat where Cullen had put him, keeping as still as he could and trying not to look like he was as much pain as he was.  He was pretty sure at least two ribs were broken.  And he was pretty sure Cullen was right about the concussion, because it was taking everything Carver had to not throw up on his own shoes.  Only the fact that doing so would make his head hurt worse had helped him keep his stomach thus far.  "'Cept she also bit you, so maybe not?"

     "Oh."  Cullen looked at his hand, sobering.  He'd wrapped a familiar-looking scrap of red cloth around it, but there was still a hint of fresh blood peeking around the edge of the bandage.  "No, that was to help me.  While that blood mage battered at my mind, I... faltered.  Being caged like that again, at the mercy of such a creature..."  He pressed his lips together until they paled, and Carver frowned as he remembered what Cullen had said of his torture at Kinloch Hold.

     The Darktown pup whined a little and pressed herself against his ankle, and Cullen abruptly blinked and relaxed as he gazed down at her.  "She saved me," he said then, his voice soft but warm.  "When she saw that I would break.  She bit me; the pain, and the surprise of it, helped me focus." 

     Bending, he gathered her up in his good hand, and held her awkwardly; this was in part because he clearly had never held a puppy before, and also because she went into ecstacies of affection, wriggling and trying to lick his face and waggling her whiplike tail in a mad frenzy that pulled a laugh from Cullen, and made Carver smile.  Yeah, he was hers, all right.

     The new pups, who were perhaps a few weeks older, had been watching the Darktown pup, heads cocked.  Abruptly Cullen's pup stopped wriggling and turned to stare them down.  One of the new pups blinked in surprise; the other growled back reflexively. 

     And then the tension was abruptly settled when the mother-mabari went over to the chair and sniffed at both the new pups, who had the decency to look abashed and crouch submissively.  She regarded them for a moment in apparent thought, then unceremoniously climbed up in the chair with them, nudging them into place at her flank -- to their noticeable dismay, since they were both too old to nurse -- and began to wash them, noisily and roughly.

     Bran looked appalled.  "Viscount Commander, those creatures you brought are mongrels!  Perhaps their forbears might have had some breeding, assuming they came over with Ferelden refugees, but since then they have plainly been managing themselves.  For all we know they aren't even pure mabari."

     "Don't be stupid," Carver snapped.  "You can look at them and see what they are.  No other breed's that ugly, that tough, or that smart.  They might not have pedigrees, but they're mabari."

     "Perhaps, Lord Amell, but they likely have _fleas_.  They must be given tinctures for that, at the very least -- "

     "Indeed," Cullen said, taking one of the plush chairs and holding his puppy carefully; she settled happily against his breastplate, panting.  "And fed, too, and looked over by the healer when she arrives."  He skritched the puppy's head between her ears, and smiled in slow delight when she yipped and wriggled.  "And named, of course.  Mustn't forget that."

     Bran looked from Carver to Cullen, and Carver wanted to laugh at the growing dismay on the seneschal's face.  "You're planning to keep _all_ of them, aren't you?"

     Carver could not help grinning.  "Not our choice, y'know.  Mabari partner who they will -- "

     Abruptly there was a brief commotion in the chair as one of the puppies managed to wriggle free of its presumptive mother, skittered across the floor and pressed himself against Carver's legs, hiding.  The other tried to make a break for it, too, but the bitch caught him by the scruff and resumed washing his ears.  The trapped puppy uttered a mournful whine.

     " -- and some things you just can't fight," he finished, trying not to laugh lest he throw up. 

     Bran folded his arms, pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers and plainly struggling to contain some completely impolitic remark.  "...Very well," he said at last, shoulders slumping in defeat.  "I shall see to the healer and trainer, and a groomer, and a walker, and someone to dock that one's tail, and I shall have food brought at once of course.  I imagine the Guard will need to be informed too, to include these animals in their protection detail -- "

     "Sod's sake, Bran, you really don't know anything about mabari, do you?"  Carver shook his head, then groaned as this hurt.  Once the pain faded enough that he could think, he sighed.  "Oi, you.  Mum."

     The bitch looked up, blinking at Carver, her tongue still half stuck out.  At once the other puppy scrambled free of her and came to hide behind Carver's legs too, whining piteously.  "You haven't picked Cullen, have you?"  he asked her.  "You're just along 'cause your pup wants him.  And you haven't got another master."

     The bitch hopped down and came to sit at the center of the room as if at attention; she barked once, paused, then barked again.

     "Right, figured."  Carver closed his eyes; the room's lights had begun to dance.  Ridiculous that they kept all their healers here on an island in the middle of the city; what good were they if it took them forever to get anywhere?  Maker, how he missed Bethany.  "So, here's the thing.  We'll take care of you and your pup if you want, 'cause you helped us and fair's fair, yeah?  But you'll want to help guard the Keep, and train these little ones in how to be good protectors for their people, and keep them out of trouble while we're busy.  That way, everybody's happy.  Right?"

     The bitch barked again, straightening a little and looking pleased.  Then she rose, picked her way across the room in a dignified sort of way -- pausing for one baleful look at the purebred pups, who yipped nervously -- and sat down again.

     In front of Bran, who stared at her with a look of fast-dawning horror.  " _Viscount Commander_."

     Cullen, plainly stifling a smile, said, "She can help you, Bran.  You need hire no additional staff to deal with the pups; she has taken that on as her duty."

     "A dog.  _Duty_."

     Cullen leveled a look at him which would have cowed any other man into silence, and which merely made Bran less overtly irritated.  "There is nothing more dedicated, or more hardworking, than a mabari, Bran.  I make no wonder this one has chosen you; perhaps she senses a kindred spirit."

     "Flattery will make this no more tolerable to me, my lord."  But then Bran frowned a little, considering her.  "Yet, er, I take it she... comprehends speech?"  The bitch barked, and Bran jumped.

     "Better than most of the arseholes in this town," Carver muttered.  To his surprise, Bran let out a cynical little laugh at that.

     "Painfully true, and I suppose that is as good a qualification as any.  And I _could_ use an assistant."  The bitch barked again, wagging her tail, and Bran eyed the dog speculatively.  "Hmm.  Well, come along, then; perhaps you can find our healer, who has clearly gotten lost, while I get these little ones sorted out.  _Baths first_." 

     He glowered about the room, and the puppy on Cullen's chest immediately scrambled out of sight behind his hip.  Carver's two shifted their cowering to the other side of his legs.  But when the bitch stood and bared her teeth, Cullen's puppy sighed and slunk down to meet her, and the other two followed suit.  Then Bran inclined his head to them both, turned on his heel, and marched out.  The bitch followed, proudly; the puppies followed her, despondent.

     Leaving Carver suddenly alone with Cullen, who would not meet his eyes.

     "Your hand hurt?" Carver asked him.  It seemed a safe way to start.

     "A little."  Cullen half-smiled.  "She looked so terribly guilty after biting me.  I have been thinking of calling her Justinia."

     Carver burst out laughing, then immediately regretted it when his gorge rose.  "You're naming her after _the Divine_?  Maker, don't make me laugh, it hurts."

     "Well, I have been named a heretic.  I should perhaps earn the label."  Cullen got up and came over to crouch beside him, his expression serious despite his light tone.  He reached up to examine Carver's eyes, but Carver caught his hand.

     "You got me puppies," Carver said.

     Cullen looked briefly flustered.  "Well.  I, er, had Bran get you puppies.  Yes."

     It was hard not to smile, but Carver made himself stay blank-faced.  He wasn't sure what he meant to say, just that it was suddenly important to say it.  "And you came with a troop of Guards to rescue me from slavers."

     "I came with a troop of Guards to rescue you from _Ferelden-haters_.  I thought slavers were involved only peripherally, and I had no idea they were Tevinters.  If I had, I'd have brought other Templars."  He scowled.  "And you could have asked me for assistance, Carver, in getting your family home back.  If I had known you wanted it -- "

     "It was mine to earn back, not yours to give.  You give me too sodding much already."

     Cullen drew back, and immediately Carver regretted what he'd said; the man looked so hurt.  "I meant only -- "

     Carver sighed.  "I know what you meant."  He thought he managed to squeeze Cullen's hand.  The blow had muddied his thoughts too much for him to be sure.  But Cullen looked sharply at their joined hands, so he must have done it.  "You don't have to _buy_ me.  That's what's balls about this whole mess; you already paid a country for me.  It means more to me that you showed up with sword in hand when you thought I needed it -- even if I didn't -- than if you gave me a hundred swords.  Uh, even if they're damned nice swords.  Thanks for that, by the way."

     Cullen's hand twitched in Carver's; he looked away, blushing again.  "It was not a... not a _bribe_ , or anything of the sort.  I meant for you to know your worth, in my eyes."

     To that, Carver could think of nothing to say, and not just because of his blurred thoughts. So he said nothing, and they sat there in awkward silence, until finally the healer arrived to take care of them both. 

     And as Carver sat afterward savoring the lack of pain, and watching while the woman finished up Cullen's hand, he tried to think about what Cullen had said, and what that meant for all the politics, and whether the thought in his mind was the right one, and whether he dared try this one more time, and...

     And...

     And.  Fuck it.

     When the healer had bowed her way out, Cullen sighed and stood, looking down at himself and grimacing.  "I smell of the sewers.  I think I shall bid you a good night, so that I may go and scrub myself raw."  He inclined his head to Carver, then hesitated.  "Will, ah, will you be here, in the morning?  We might have breakfast together."

     Carver rested his elbows on his knees and nodded, folding his hands and examining them closely.  "I'm thinking we can have breakfast in your quarters, actually," he said in a neutral tone, "if I spend the night there."

     Utter silence.  He looked up to see Cullen staring at him, face blank with shock.  It almost made Carver smile; clearly Cullen had not often been propositioned.  But as the moment dragged on and Carver began to wonder if he'd made a mistake, Cullen whispered a brief prayer under his breath.

     "I would like that," he said, fixing Carver with an intent, almost desperate gaze.  "Though... you know of my condition."

     That he did not want mere lust between them. Carver pushed to his feet and took a step toward him; Cullen lifted his chin a little, perhaps responding to the unspoken challenge.  "I think I can meet your _condition_ ," Carver said, quietly.  "In fact, I'm pretty sure of it."

     Cullen actually closed his eyes for a moment.  When he opened them again, he had to swallow before speaking.  "Then... you are welcome to share my bed whenever you wish."

     Carver took another step toward him, then made himself stop.  "I kinda want to share it right now.  But I reek, too, so I'll wash first."  He licked his lips, abruptly uncertain.  He didn't think he could take it, not again, if...  "You gonna say no to me again, Cullen?"

     Cullen shivered all over.  "N -- "  He laughed, once, weakly, and then sobered.  Something harder, and hungry, came into his expression.  "Not this time."

     Yeah.  _Yeah_.  Sodding _finally_.  Carver nodded unnecessarily, and backed up.  "Be over in an hour, then."

     Cullen nodded back; he looked as though he meant to say something, but the nod was all he could manage.  He turned toward his own rooms, stumbling a little, like a man lost in fog.  Or maybe like a man whose armor had suddenly gotten too small for his dick.  _Maker, he's ridiculous_.  Carver grinned at his back. 

     And gorgeous.  And strong.  And brave, if a bit too chivalrous.  And good, and wise, and kind, and... amazing. 

     Void and flames, maybe this really _was_ love.

     But it was a Fade-ton of lust, too.  So there might be something to this waiting-for-the-right-time business; Maker knew he'd had plenty of time to imagine what he wanted with Cullen, and his fantasies had gotten pretty creative.  It didn't matter, though.  He'd come up with new fantasies later, since he was about to act out some of them right now.  He was past done with waiting. 

     _And in a few minutes I'm gonna fuck the crap out of the amazing_.  Smirking to himself, Carver turned and performed his own awkward swagger back to his rooms.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a silly ending, I think. Note that I've downgraded this story from "explicit" to "mature"; alas, I wasn't really feeling the porn with this one. Granted, it skirts kind of close to pornyness, but hopefully it's mostly just sweet and fun. Enjoy!

     The knock at the door caught Cullen in mid-pace.  He stumbled and nearly fell as part of his mind made him turn toward the sound, and the other part of his mind considered bolting for the window which overlooked the Keep's courtyard, some four stories below.

     He did neither, instead simply standing there and staring at the door for what felt like an hour, though it was probably only three breaths or so.  Then, reminding himself that a gentleman did not keep his lover waiting --

     -- and nearly stumbling again as he stepped forward and simultaneously thought _my lover!_ and found that he could not walk and think these words at the same time --

     -- Cullen stopped and murmured a brief prayer.  This one he sent not to Andraste or the Maker, but to Maferath.  Betrayer or no, surely only another mortal man who'd loved someone extraordinary could comprehend what it felt like to _want_ and _fear_ the same person so powerfully, all at the same time.  _Please_ , he thought desperately, _do not let me cock up everything_. 

     Then he took a deep breath, murmured a random Chant verse to marshall his thoughts, and went to open the door, an instant after the knock came a second time.

     "Hey," said Carver, who had leaned against the door-sill, and who was wearing nothing but his smile.  "Took you long enough.  Were you standing there dithering the whole while, or did you not hear me knock the first time?"

     _Oh_ , Cullen thought.  And though he knew it was impolite, though he knew he should not, he could not help that his eyes traveled down, from Carver's wry smile and over the pale breadth of his chest and down his long warriors' arms and stuttering along the flat planes of his belly until -- _oh.  Maker._

     "Dithering," he admitted.

     He could see Carver's slow smile out of the periphery of his vision.  "Figured.  Can I come in?  Or you want to drop and have a lick now?  The way you're staring."

     "What?"  That dragged Cullen's eyes back up to Carver's, and shocked his mind out of _Oh_ as he processed what Carver had said.  "Oh!  No!  Yes!  I mean -- come in, I would never, I, you must, I'm sorry -- "

     Carver shook his head and sauntered in past Cullen, looking around thoughtfully.  He wore one other thing, Cullen saw as he passed:  a tattoo of a mabari done all in black, on his left arse-cheek.  And he carried an oddly-shaped, rubber-stoppered wine bottle in his right hand; did that mean he was as nervous as Cullen, and needed a drink to ease his nerves?  He did not look it, if so.

     "Hope you didn't mean that 'I would never' part," Carver said, weaving casually around Cullen's sitting room furniture; Cullen followed him, unsure of what else to do.  He could not think of what to do with his hands, either, and finally settled for thrusting them into the pockets of the plush robe that he wore, hoping that he did not look unduly foolish.

     "What?" Cullen realized he had missed something while fretting about his pockets.

     "You said you'd never, after I asked if you wanted a lick."  Carver turned to walk backwards, grinning at him, and once again Cullen's eyes were drawn to the unabashedly proud erection that bobbed between his legs.  This time he made himself look away faster, though.  "I'm hoping you will, at least _sometimes_.  C'mon."  He lifted the hand that held the bottle, and beckoned with a finger.

     Too flustered to do anything but obey, Cullen followed, and realized all at once that Carver had backed into his bedroom, unerringly.  As Cullen followed, Carver bent to yank back the duvet and top sheets as if the bed was his own.  Then he set the bottle on the nightstand and slid himself backwards into the sheets, propping himself on his elbows.  And _waiting_ , pointedly.

     _Oh_.  "Is this -- "  It was too fast.  Cullen had expected -- he had no idea.  To talk.  To kiss.  Something that would allow them to build up to this moment.  To just leap into bed, falling upon him like some kind of ravening beast, seemed wrong, however much he might want to.  "Carver, should we not -- "

     Carver propped his head on one folded arm and chuckled a little, which did not make Cullen feel better.  "You know, we _can_ just sleep.  I fought a demon today, and you a blood mage.  And I think your bed's softer than mine."

     "It isn't -- "  Belatedly it hit him.  "You're making fun of me."

     Carver's smile was easy, warm; there was nothing of malice in it.  "A little, maybe."

     "And..."  Cullen glanced down his body at that marvelous cock of his, lying full and ready and inviting in its nest of black curls.  _Maker_.  "You don't really want to just sleep."  He exhaled.  "I am behaving like some sheltered Chantry initiate."

     "A little, maybe."

     Cullen could only offer a weak laugh at that -- though, blessedly, he felt a bit easier now, which had perhaps been Carver's intention.  "I might be less nervous if we had some of your wine, first."

     Carver laughed again, low and rich and _intent_ , and something about that laugh woke a tug in Cullen's groin; he shivered a little.  "That bottle, you mean?  That's not wine."

     "It's not?"  Then what was it?  And then as Cullen stared at the bottle, noting again its _rubber_ stopper, and its strange shape that did not at all seem built to keep sediment at the bottom, he felt his face catch fire.  "Oh, Andraste."  Oil.  It was a very, very big bottle of oil.

     Carver crossed one ankle over his upraised knee, and rested his free hand on his belly, suggestively close.  "Well, you have got me hot and bothered after all this waiting.  I figured we'd need to make up for lost time."

     "Oh."  A _lot_ of lost time, apparently.  "It is only... It has been a very long time, Carver, and... you are..."  He spread his hands, helplessly, trying to articulate it.  "I'm not sure how to begin."

     "Lots of ways to do that.  Take that robe off, maybe.  Sit down next to me."  He licked his lips, and by this Cullen knew what _Carver_ wanted, as a starter.  "Kiss me."

     That much he could do.  He stepped closer to the bed, and it was as if making a decision devoured much of his anxiety; suddenly it was easier to think, and to want.  He blushed, but reached for the sash of his robe.  "Or perhaps all of the above?" 

     It was wholly gratifying, the way Carver's gaze grew hotter as Cullen let the robe fall to the floor.  And it was wholly irresistible, the way he lifted a hand to invite Cullen closer.  So Cullen sat, and bent to kiss him -- and hesitated, again.

     "Oh, what now?"  Carver groaned the words.

     Cullen spoke quickly.  "I want you."  Carver relaxed just a little; Cullen had not realized 'til then that he was tense.  "I want you powerfully, and... I will not deny you again.  But this -- the consummation -- must still be your choice, Carver.  I will not _take_ you, and tie you to me, not when you have had so little choice in all the rest of it.  It must be a giving.  No part of me, in no part of you, nor any mingling of -- "

     He got no further, because Carver sighed in exasperation and took his hand.  And Cullen started, because it was Carver's left hand, and on the fourth finger was the ring Cullen had given him --

     -- and before Cullen could remark upon it, Carver drew Cullen's index finger into his mouth.

     It was the most erotic thing Cullen had ever experienced:  the curve of Carver's lips, suckling; the feel of his tongue, licking; the corresponding hard jolt in Cullen's groin, reacting.  So enraptured was he by the sight of his finger being drawn into Carver's mouth, then out, slowly, then in again, that he only belatedly registered what Carver had done.

     Any part of Cullen.  In any part of Carver.

     "There," Carver said, letting his finger go and giving the tip a final lick.  "Got that over with."

     "Carver."  Cullen stared down at him, in wonder and mute joy.

     Carver blushed a little.  But then he shifted, pulling on Cullen until he had no choice but to slide fully into the bed, marveling at the new and shocking sensation of his own flesh pressed tight against someone else's.  Against _Carver's_. 

     Carver, who wanted him, and had chosen him.

     "You got me _puppies_ ," Carver said, as if that explained everything.  "Now come _on_."

     "Yes," Cullen breathed, bending to kiss Carver, and thereafter he did not hesitate again.

#

     Downstairs in the Viscount's library, Bran paced before the line of freshly-washed, dried, de-flea'd, toenail-trimmed, magically examined, and well-fed mabari.

     "The thing that troubles me," he said, tapping his lips as he paced, "is that they are as likely to cock it all up as, well, do _useful_ things with their cocks.  Tonight is crucial.  All the conditions are right, save that they have spent the day in battle and might fall asleep.  But a morning coupling would work just as well, provided there's actually a coupling."

     Pausing, he glanced toward the library shelf nearest the Viscount Commander's favorite chair.  The shelf was precisely at eye-level, which was why Bran had carefully arranged a few key tomes there; it was of course the best possible place to plant information of a certain instructive nature, since it was painfully obvious the man had limited sexual experience.  Going over to the shelf, he pulled free the _Coitus Hominos Variae_ , a Tevinter manual on sexual positions for men.  He'd rather thought it might be too advanced for Cullen -- and sure enough, the strand of hair he'd taped across the middle pages was undisturbed.  If Cullen had even opened it, he'd put it down within a few pages, probably in horror.  Yet there was hope:  _The Private Joys of Marriage_ had been opened fully, and the chapter Bran had taped -- a very delicately-worded set of instructions on how to stimulate the male body via oral and other techniques -- actually had a dog-eared page.  And had that book been shoved more deeply into the shelf than the rest?  Naturally Cullen would want no one to know he'd been reading it.  (Honestly, the man was almost as bad as Dumar.  Bran still woke in cold sweats at night, remembering what he'd gone through to get Seamus conceived.  Thank the Maker they were done with hereditary Viscountry.)

     The third book that Bran had secreted on the shelf, in desperation, was one of the middle chapters of _Hard in Hightown_ \-- one of Bran's favorite scenes, actually, in which world-weary Guardsman Donnen Brennicovic had spent an evening with a lonely yet handsome male prostitute at the Blushing Lily brothel.  The story did take a certain amount of poetic license with the male anatomy, but at least Cullen might fathom the basics from it.  Alas; that one had not been read far, either.

     Yet if Bran did not miss his guess, Lord Amell was far from inexperienced in the matter, and -- provided his natural contrary nature did not kick in -- could probably handle the preliminaries.  This was less an issue of knowledge and skill, and more a matter of temperament and circumstance.

     "My greatest fear is that they will _talk_ ," he said, straightening and folding his arms in frustration.  "One cross word and they may retreat to their separate corners again for a month or more; that simply cannot happen."

     He stopped and glanced at the dogs.  The pups all watched him with heads cocked in puzzlement, but the bitch sat panting, a doggish grin on her face.  Maker, but he was beginning to think she _did_ understand him.

     Warily -- and glancing toward the door to make sure it was not ajar, so no one would hear him do this -- he addressed her.  "The fate of nations depends on those two -- er, mating," he said, shifting from foot to foot and feeling vaguely foolish.  "I don't suppose you have any ideas?"

     She stood and barked, stubby tail wagging.  Then she collected the pups with a glance and trotted to the library door, scratching it once and glancing back at Bran.  Puzzled, he opened it -- and then had to follow the dogs all the way back upstairs to the Viscount's family quarters.  The common areas of the level were quiet as Bran cautiously entered, praying that he did not himself interrupt a delicate moment.  But the mabari bitch sniffed about Carver's door for a moment, then trotted over and sniffed at Cullen's; glancing at Bran, she whuffed just a little, and pointed with her blunt head toward Cullen's door.

     Surprised as much at her circumspection as at her intelligence, Bran nodded, pleased.  Lord Amell was in the Viscount Commander's rooms; it was a good sign.

     Then the bitch went over to Lord Amell's door and scratched, once, quietly.  Curious, Bran let her in, and the puppies trotted in after her.  She whuffed and nuzzled them, and they sniffed and pricked ears and wriggled back, and somehow this communicated that the three of them should hop up onto Lord Amell's bed.

     Bran should have expected what came next.  On the bitch's soft yip, all three puppies squatted and --  "Oh, dear Maker," he groaned, covering his mouth.  Because it was _brilliant_ , and if he did not stop himself, his own belly-laughs would disturb the happy couple.

     "Yes, that should do nicely," he said to the bitch, who lolled her tongue at him again, tail wagging.  He hesitated, then offered her his hand; pleased, she nuzzled it back, and in a bit of wonder he rubbed her head and ears, marveling at the softness of her fur.

     "You are far more devious than I thought," he said, amused.  "Hmm.  Shall I call you 'Flemeth'?  It seems apropos."

     Her ears pricked forward, and her tail wagged so hard that he thought she might dislocate her hips.  Laughing softly, Bran ushered her and the puppies out, leaving the door just slightly ajar so Lord Amell would have some forewarning should he try to return to his own bed. 

     On the way out, though, he passed near the Viscount Commander's door, putting his finger to his lips for silence.  Every one of the pups squatted low and flattened their ears, holding mostly still.  (The Darktown pup, who was youngest, could not seem to keep from wriggling in excitement as she crouched, but at least she did so silently.)

     There was no sound from within for a moment, not even voices.  Dearest Maker:  two handsome men in their prime, both just reeking of sexual tension toward one another, and apparently all they had managed was sleep.  Bran sighed inwardly.

     But then he heard -- or thought he heard, if it was not wishful thinking -- a muffled moan.  A moment later, confirmation:  _"Carver,"_ said breathlessly and with unmistakable ardor.

     Oh, thank the Maker.  _Finally_.

     Holding his breath and tiptoeing with exaggerated care, Bran led his mabari coterie back to the parlor. 

     Once they were safely away from the door, he crouched and said to the pups, "You three may remain, provided that you do everything in your power to make them spend the day together.  You may look properly hangdog if Lord Amell is upset about your 'accident'; my apologies if he is angry with you, but please understand that it is for the greater good.  If you pull this off, I shall reward you later with, oh, steak.  Yes?"

     Three quiet, excited yips.  Good.  "And you," he said to Flemeth, "stand guard.  You may let through only one servant:  the woman who'll be bringing meals.  No cleaners, no messengers, not for one full day.  Should you need to leave to take care of your toilette and such, scratch on the door; I'll inform the guards.  But not even they may interrupt the Viscount Commander and his husband today.  In fact, if Lord Cullen even thinks of leaving to come to work, you should... hmm."

     Flemeth glanced at her daughter, who immediately started coughing and looking ill.  The pup was rather overdoing it, though.

     "Not so much drooping," Bran said, "or they are likely to put you in quarantine for the plague.  But the cough is a nice touch."

     Flemeth wagged her tail and nuzzled Bran's face, licking him once before he could flinch away.  Then she whined piteously, looking at the pups and drooping herself, in a long-suffering way.

     "What?  Oh, for demons' sake.  Yes, yes, steak for you, too."  She danced a brief circle, and shaking his head, Bran rose.

     "Now.  I'm off to speak to the cook about arranging a lovers' breakfast, and to the Guard Captain about shutting down tomorrow's audience hours.  And I'll need to clear the Viscount Commander's schedule; there's nothing that can't wait." 

     He exhaled, pleased at least that this much had been accomplished.  It was quite the coup, all things considered.  Clearly Queen Anora had not expected this marriage to last.  Bran was going to see to it that it lasted for _years_.

     "You have your assignments," he said stage-whispered, leveling a hard look at each animal.  " _For Kirkwall_."

#

     The rooftop of the Viscount's Keep was ostensibly designed for the royal family's security; if so, Isabela decided, the designers should probably be whipped.  Not only had she and Merrill had no trouble scaling the wall, which had all sorts of convenient finger- and toe-holds in it, but the Viscount's quarters actually had a flaming _skylight_ in the bedroom.  It was almost as if they wanted her to watch. 

     "So let's oblige them, shan't we?"  Isabela asked, grinning as she rolled out the blanket that had been tucked into her pack.

     Merrill giggled -- quietly, thank the Maker; she'd never been a hunter among the Dalish, but she certainly understood the need for appropriate discretion.  There were guards on other parts of the Keep's rooftop, but Isabela had learned long ago that they didn't bother putting a guard on this one, probably to safeguard the Viscount's privacy. 

     Which made it the perfect spot for a moonlit date.

     "Here," Merrill murmured, passing her the bottle of wine.  "I can never get the cork out."

     "There's a trick to these things."  Isabela drew her knife and beckoned Merrill closer, pleased that Merrill showed no fear of the knife as she came near.  It was so nice to finally have a lover who _understood_ her, and did not judge.  "Remember that thing I told you about with the tongue?  How you have to suckle just so?"  When Merrill blushed, Isabela grinned and leaned over to lick the tip of one of her ears.  Then she demonstrated with the knife, sliding it in and angling it to break the cork's seal, then deftly flicking the cork out.  "Voila."

     "You know everything," Merrill said, lounging against Isabela's side.  There was a note of unhappiness in her voice, and Isabela frowned to hear it.  "I don't even know all the things women are good for yet, let alone men."

     "Well, yes, that's why we're here, to further your education," Isabela said.  "Now, let's take a look, shall we?"

     Taking care that their shadows were nowhere near the bed, both of them peered through the skylight to the room below.  The skylight was angled a few inches open on one edge, probably to let out warm air on summer nights, or the Viscount's quarters would be unbearably hot.  As it was, Isabela decided -- _oh, my, such a lovely arse, you lucky puppy_ \-- things were rather hot already.  It was hard to see precisely what was going on because of the angle, and because the skylight was a little flyspecked from years of the elements; her first impression was a confusion of pale limbs with tan, skin entwined with skin, and only the occasional glimpse of an open mouth or arched back or hand dragging lines into the sheets.  They kept _turning_ , Isabela thought irritably, writhing around each other like dolphins... and yet there was an unmistakable rhythm to the way they moved together.  And if that was not clue enough, through the skylight she could hear soft fevered breaths and half-choked cries, and were those small wet sounds?  Perhaps that part was only her imagination, filling in necessary details.

     "Oh," breathed Merrill, her big eyes even wider in the moonlight as she looked up at Isabela.  "They're beautiful.  Like halla in the mist."

     It was rather more poetic an observation than Isabela had been hoping for, but she liked it nevertheless, and cupped Merrill's cheek for a kiss.  "They are, aren't they?  Perhaps men are good for a second thing, then."

     Merrill chuckled in that purring sort of way Isabela loved and wriggled a little closer.  "Can we do that thing they're doing?  You don't have to be a man for that, right?"

     "Of course not."  As Isabela had half hoped, Merrill came right with her when she lay back, then curled them about to put Merril beneath her.  Merrill giggled at the acrobatics -- but she was also soft and close, and yielding, and wanting.  Perfect, as Merrill always was.  "To do what they're doing, you just need a mouth and hands, kitten.  Those are my favorite parts, anyway."

     "No, no, I mean -- "  And abruptly Merrill ducked her eyes.  "I mean, um, the way they're looking at each other, all soft and surprised, like neither of them expected it to feel so good.  Like they can't look _away_ from each other.  Could we do that?"

     Isabela blinked, a slow smile spreading across her lips.  "Well, that depends, I'm thinking."  She bent to kiss the little divot between Merrill's collarbones, and smiled when Merrill's slight chest rose in a gasp.

     Somewhere down below she heard Carver gasp too.  "Oh, _fuck_ , Cullen, that's -- nnh, _Maker_..."

     Merrill watched her, trembling and a little breathless.  "D-depends?  On what?"

     Isabela reached up and drew one fingertip along the length of Merrill's earlobe.  "Whether you and I like each other as much as the two of them do.  Want to find out?"

     "Oh, yes.  Please, Isabela, I... I really would like to."

     Isabela bent close, so that she could whisper in that long, elegant ear.  "Me, too, kitten."

     So they made love right there, to the sounds of wind and the city and soft male music, and it was good.  There was some looking at each other, and maybe theirs were the same kinds of looks as those being exchanged in the bedroom below; Isabela didn't know.  She didn't really care, either, because that was them and this was her and Merrill, and as long as everyone was happy, what did it matter? 

     And best of all, no one caught them at it.  Which, as far as Isabela was concerned, made this the perfect night.

#

     Mairey had won the hand, Maker's Breath, and she could not stop grinning as Cook gave her the tray to take upstairs.  All the other servants were watching her in a combination of envy and awe -- and trepidation, of course.  The last had loomed since Seneschal Bran had come downstairs and promised it would mean the job of anyone who disrupted the Viscount Commander at his husbanding, which was almost enough to take away all the fun of the thing.  Still, Mairey had been serving the Viscounts of the Keep for almost as long as Bran had been Seneschaling them, so she wagered she could serve them a meal, get a good look at the festivities, and leave with neither man any the wiser.  She was a professional, after all.

     The first stumble, however, came when she got past the guards -- who let her go up, but gave her the hairy eyeball in the process.  No doubt Bran had threatened them as well.  As she got to the top of the private stairway, she stopped in shock at the sight of the world's biggest dog, sitting in the middle of the room and glowering at her as balefully as any Blight Wolf.  She thought it might be bigger, too.  It glanced at the heavily-laden tray in her hands, and for a moment Mairey feared she would have to drop the tray and flee, if the dog attacked her for it.

     But to her surprise, its ears pricked, and then it rose and trotted over to the Viscount Commander's door.  It sniffed about at the bottom of the door, then whuffed and wagged its tail, then turned to Mairey and -- she could have sworn -- nodded her on.  After that it trotted back to where it had been guarding the stairs.

     Swallowing, Mairey listened at the door, and sure enough she could hear them at it, all rough groans and steady bed-creaks.  Still going strong, though rumor had it they'd been at it since the night before; in spite of her nerves, Mairey could not help grinning.  There had been speculation about the Viscount Commander, of course, since he never laid a hand on the serving girls or pageboys and, as far as anyone could tell, had never so much as looked at any of the pretty nobles who waved handkerchiefs his way.  He was a right proper Andrastean, saving it all for his Maker-blessed beloved -- but mayhap he'd had a lot saved up by now!

     She slipped into the chamber as quietly as she always did, crossing the sitting room and easing into the bedroom.  This was where green servants always cocked up:  if one got distracted and didn't concentrate on setting down the tray first, accidents happened.  So she paid no attention to the sex-thick scent of the room, or the hard movement she could glimpse out of the corner of her eye, or the Viscount Commander's voice, ordinarily so gentle and cultured, now gasping out, "Sweet blessed _Andraste_ , Carver, that is --  Oh, Maker, I cannot -- oh -- "  Or the Lord Amell puffing out, "Yeah.  More of that?  Yeah, I think _so_."  She did not look, no matter how intrigued she was, until she got the tray safely into its place on the dresser.  She pulled the cloth away, turned over the teacups, wiped up a quick spill of jam from the edge of its tub.  Only then did she turn -- and freeze, her mouth dropping open.

     Because of all the things she'd expected to see, the first was not the Viscount Commander half-buried in the sheets and all undone, with his husband riding him hard, bent over his back and holding his arms down amid the sheets.  Nor had she expected that Lord Amell would be grinning at her while he did it.  Or lifting a hand to beckon her closer with one finger, even as his hips kept at the business.

     Startled, Mairey actually looked around to see who else he might be pointing to, though of course it could only be her.  So, swallowing, she edged around the bed -- out of the Viscount Commander's sight, should he lift his head or open his eyes, which he did not seem inclined to do in that moment -- and came a little closer.  Lord Amell licked his lips and stood up on his knees, running a hand down the long elegant curve of the Viscount Commander's spine.  "So sodding beautiful."  The words were broken by the rhythm of his movements; this close, Mairey could feel the heat wafting off them both.  And she could see -- oh.  _Oh._   She could see _everything_. 

     When Lord Amell saw that she'd gotten an eyeful, he grinned and leaned over, murmuring breathlessly, for he hadn't slowed his rhythm a bit.  "Go tell Bran." 

     Blushing as she had not done for a good twenty years, Mairey nodded mutely and beat a hasty retreat.  The last thing she saw as she hurried out of the bedchamber -- because she could not help getting one last look in -- was Lord Amell bending down to take a firmer hold of the Viscount Commander at wrist and hip.  And as Mairey skirted 'round the big dog -- and three more little ones, she noticed belatedly, piled up in a chair nearby sleeping -- she heard the Viscount Commander cry out, his voice breaking and hoarse, and Lord Amell make a strangled sound with him.

     She fled down the stairs, and went straight to the Senseschal's office.

     " _Did_ he, now?"  Sitting back from his desk, Bran looked both impressed and amused.  "Well, well.  Our young Lord Amell is more shrewd than I thought... or perhaps just more possessive, now that he's decided on what he wants.  You're a witness, now, should anyone from Fereldan try to dispute the marriage's consummation.  You're quite sure you saw his -- "

     "Oh, yes," Mairey said, nodding emphatically.  "I saw all of that.  Going all the way, ah, there.  No mistake, messere."

     Bran chuckled a little.  "Thus for all my scheming.  Thank you, then, Mairey -- oh.  And be sure to tell everyone what you saw."

     "Tell -- "  She blinked, unsure of what she'd just heard.  " _Everyone_ , messere?"

     "Everyone."  And Bran sat back, smirking.  "No embellishments, please; we'll let the rumor mill take care of that.  But tell it to as many people as you can.  We must see that the rumor of it reaches Fereldan as quickly as possible, after all."

     "Er... yes, Seneschal."  A little dazed, Mairey headed down to the kitchens, where a rapt audience waited to hear all about it.

#

     "I have the feeling," said Cullen, "that the world is watching us, somehow."

     "S'nothing," Carver muttered, beneath him.  He was half insensible, sprawled on his belly in the wake of their last bout; Cullen had rested his head on the back of Carver's shoulder, idly stroking the hard curves of muscle along his arm.  "Nobody gives a shit that you've just had the best dick of your life."

     Cullen laughed, blushing a little, and kissed the back of Carver's neck.  "You are the only man I have ever been with, my love."

     "Yeah, and now you don't need to go comparing with anybody else."  Carver yawned mightily and pushed up a little, in warning; with a reluctant sigh, Cullen rose enough to let him roll over.  He did like it better this way:  hearing Carver's heartbeat against his ear, feeling Carver's arms settle heavy 'round him.  It was just hard to muster any will to move, now that bone-deep lethargy had set in.

     And as Carver turned, there were sleepy complaints from all 'round, as the instant they'd finished coupling the puppies had all hopped up into the bed and nestled around them at various points, as if to pin them in.  Carver's pair were trying to sleep, in any case; Cullen's Justinia stood at attention somewhere near Carver's head, plainly guarding them against -- something.  _Good girl_ , Cullen thought blearily, and she wagged her tail as if she'd heard.

     "Gonna be trouble now, you know," said Carver.  When Cullen lifted his head, he saw that Carver's eyes had drifted shut.  "Lot of people didn't want this to work, between us.  Word gets out we actually _like_ each other..."  He shrugged.  "Might get ugly."

     "I do not care."  And just because he could, Cullen reached up to trace a finger over Carver's lips, which curved in a smile.  "And we do not merely _like_ one another.  Do we?"

     Carver's eyes flicked open, gratifyingly surprised.  And to Cullen's great relief, his face softened, and he said, "No.  It's a little more than that."

     _Thank you, Maker_.  Cullen exhaled and lay his head back down on Carver's chest.

     After a moment, in which Cullen thought Carver might have drifted off, Carver said, softer, "Kinda hoped this might turn out all right.  Coming here to Kirkwall."

     Cullen held very still.  "Did you, now?"

     "Yeah.  I mean, I figured it wouldn't.  But... I hoped."

     _He wants something more than mere pleasure._   Bran's words came back to Cullen, and he reminded himself to commend the man for his prescience.  _Some part of him takes the vow of marriage as seriously as you do_.  And that part of Carver had wanted to love, and be loved, by a man who knew his worth and was worthy of him in turn.

     "We are united in the eyes of the Maker," Cullen said, smoothing his hand over Carver's chest, "and we have brought truth and honor to our vows.  Naturally He has seen fit to bestow upon us worthy protectors -- "  He eyed Justinia, who barked, and smiled, " -- and helpmeets."  He sighed and shut his eyes, getting comfortable, and loving the way that Carver's chest made such a perfect pillow for his head.  "Let our enemies come.  Our love shall defeat them all."

     He felt the slight movement of it as Carver lifted his head to look at him.  "Oh, for fuck's _sake_ , Cullen."

     But he did not laugh for long, Cullen noted.  And his arms shifted to curl tighter 'round Cullen's shoulders.  One of his hands stroked Cullen's hair, and for a moment Cullen felt the strength in it -- and perhaps a hint of resolve.

     Thus, safe and satisfied, Cullen held his champion close, and drifted into the Fade knowing that all would be well, for clearly the Maker had willed it so.


	7. Chapter 6 - Porn Version

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Chapter 6 sex scene, once more with porn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, so, when I was writing Chapter 6, I started to write it Explicit and couldn't get it quite right. Changed the tense from past to present and it worked better, but it was so different from the story proper that I didn't intend to ever post it. Had a rough day, so porn stress relief time! Just imagine this starts after the first section break in the original Chapter 6.

     He is lost in Cullen's mouth.  That's what it feels like, in these first moments of tangling bliss, with Cullen's leg between his and one of his arms trapped under Cullen's side and Cullen's cock jabbing firm and warm against his hip.  All of it is amazing, the warmth of him and the smoothness of his tanned skin and the smell of him and the little sounds of need that he's making probably without quite realizing he's making them, but it's Cullen's mouth that makes it all perfect.  Not a skilled kisser, but plenty of hunger to make up for it, and Carver can only yield to the enticement of a tongue touching his and teeth closing on his lip and pressure the whole while, as if Cullen wants nothing more than to climb inside Carver through his mouth.  As if all the sex they need is right here, sweet and slurping, and every moan Cullen drags out of him is as good as making him come.

     But it is, isn't it?  Cullen's tongue is in his mouth; that's enough to count as consummation.  There's nothing chaste about the way he's sucking on Carver's lower lip, either, or about the hard ache of response in Carver's groin while he does it.  They're fucking with their tongues, and no court in the land will count that as innocent.

     Then Cullen's hand, which has been stroking its way down his arm -- like the day they married, that little touch he'd done back then that had kept Carver up half the night thinking of _maybes_ and _what ifs_ and trying to decide whether he needed to jerk off, that little hint of what might be and what he might want -- that hand shifts to his waist, and then his hip, and it's too close, too much, and Carver's sick of waiting.  So he grabs Cullen's hand and pulls it to his cock, and Cullen inhales and finally lifts his mouth off Carver's.  His eyes are hazel, and hot as Andraste's fires.  Then he lifts up a little, and looks down between them at the sight of his own hand tentatively stroking Carver's length, and Carver can _see_ the wanting come over him.  _Want a lick?_ he'd teased before, and he can see that Cullen does.  Does he ever.

     So Cullen shifts down, and Carver lifts a leg and pushes his hips up a bit to make it easier, and it's kind of shocking how there's no hesitation whatsoever in the way Cullen _takes_ his cock, grabbing the base of the shaft like its his own and wrapping his mouth around the rest as if he's done this his whole life.  He hasn't -- Carver can tell because at first there's too much teeth and suction, typical beginner mistake -- oh, but Maker is he a fast learner.  And oh, but his mouth is warm, and so wet, and even if he's not yet sure what to do with his teeth it's his _tongue_ that's amazing, flickering away at that little divot right where Carver likes it best, and within a few strokes Carver is panting, arching, trying his damnedest not to clutch at Cullen's head and just start fucking his face because neither of them is ready for that.  But then Cullen pulls free -- did he know, somehow? -- and tilts his head to drag that amazing tongue down the under-ridge of Carver's cock, and how his hand has moved down to cup and massage his balls like, like, like Carver has no similes to compare it to, it just feels so Maker-blessed _good_.

     "C-c-c -- "  He tries to say Cullen's name and instead just grates out the first letter of it, and he just manages to fist his hands in the sheets instead of Cullen's hair.  And when he looks down, Cullen's _watching_ him come apart, and that alone almost undoes him.  Cullen is a king.  He's prim and proper and upstanding and so noble that he outshines his own armor, and here he is playing with Carver's balls while licking his dick, and he's _enjoying_ it.

     "F-fuck," Carver manages, and suddenly he's on the brink.  "Oh, fuck, Cull, I -- don't -- I'm gonna -- "  Oh, shit, and Cullen's stroking him _faster_.  Carver can barely talk, his body drawing taut as garotte-wire, his voice skirling higher-pitched because, because --  "Cullen, fuck, _please_!"  He has no idea what he's begging for.

     Cullen gives it to him nevertheless, sucking him deep and making this unbelievably vulgar slurping sound and tightening the fingers of his free hand just a little on Carver's thigh and that's it, Carver's done, his back is bowed, he's seeing stars, it feels so good that it _hurts_ , so good he can't make a sound or _breathe_ , and Cullen's proper kingly mouth is swallowing every sodding drop.

     Then it's done and Carver's a puddle.  He lies sprawled and limp, not thinking, trying to drag breath back into his body.  And Cullen's still suckling him, though slower and more gently now, perhaps savoring the taste of Carver's shattered willpower.  Carver's so sensitive that he whimpers a little, but also so completely sated that he can't even twitch.

     A few decades later Cullen finally finishes devouring him and climbs back up his body, though Carver feels the brush of his lips and the scratch of his beard and the nip of his teeth all along the way, as if Cullen can't bear to have his mouth off Carver for even a moment.  Finally Cullen settles on top of him, warm and heavy and welcome, nibbling at the curve of Carver's ear where Carver has let his head fall away to one side.

     "I would have more of that from you," he whispers in Carver's ear, in between teeth.

     "H -- "  Carver's so done he can barely think, let alone talk.  "More?"

     Cullen's low laugh is a reward.  "Your body, helpless in delight.  Your voice, hoarse and unhushed, or choked silent by your own ecstasy."  His fingers find Carver's nipple and Carver makes a soft surprised sound, because was that a tickle down below?  Nothing there should work anytime soon.  But Cullen's fingers feel so good, and his breath's so hot on Carver's skin.  "I have dreamt of this since I first laid eyes upon you."

     That pulls Carver a little further out of lethargic bliss, because he has to laugh.  "Nnh.  You dreamt... of blowing me crosseyed?"

     Cullen doesn't laugh.  His breath's still so hot -- and Carver realizes he's still hard as steel against Carver's hip, not thrusting but grinding just a little.  Still _needing_.  "Of having you in my bed, yes.  You are a beautiful man."  His teeth bite harder on Carver's ear, and Carver has a moment to wonder whether Cullen's kinkier than he seems.  He's also amazed that they're still talking, hot and bothered as Cullen seems to be.  "As I have grown to know you, as you've held me at bay despite my every effort to win you, those desires have built to a torment.  I _ache_ for you, my Carver.  I have dreamt of bringing you to pleasure in ways I've only read about, and Maker but I have had _enough_ of my hand."  And finally he blushes, as if it has only occurred to him that everything he's saying is so bloody filthy that the Chantry sisters who raised him would be scandalized.  Or titillated.  Like Carver is.  Cullen murmurs the last, but it is no less arousing for his shame.  "Perhaps the Maker will damn me for my desire, but I love you, so this cannot be a sin."

     Inhaling, Carver looks at him.  He's serious.  And as Carver stares, Cullen's face tightens and grows tender in a way that just makes him marvel -- because this man is a _king_ and he _loves Carver_.  Carver still can't figure out how this happened.

     But he likes it.  He likes it a lot. 

     So Carver rolls them, and Cullen lets him, and then he fucks Cullen's mouth with his tongue some more.  It's good, and it's wet, and Cullen's making little needy sounds when Carver reaches blindly for the big flask of oil he brought.  He has to pull away to get the damn thing's cap off, and it's a raw, awful thing to be separated from him for even that long.  ("Please," Cullen says, his voice shaking; his hands drag at Carver's arm, his hip.  "Please, come back.")  He comes back with his hands dripping and slick, probably going to mess up the sheets but hey, Cullen's a king, he can afford new ones.  He runs one of those hands over Cullen's chest just because he sodding can.  It's completely unnecessary because Cullen's all over sweat anyway.  But he wraps the other hand around Cullen's cock and works it all over, ignoring Cullen's sharp cries and writhing, licking his lips and moving to straddle the man.  It's a beautiful cock:  not too big, not too small, not too weird-shaped, left-hanging.  Also, it's attached to Cullen.

     "Carver," Cullen says.  His hands are shaking on Carver's thighs.  Carver positions himself and starts to push down.  He hasn't stretched, and it's been awhile, but he's horny as a dragon, and that has to count for something, right?  So he breathes out and thinks of how good Cullen will feel in him, how good Cullen feels _going into_ him, how good Cullen will feel _coming_ in him, and lickety-split they're fucking.  It's glorious.  Cullen's silent, his eyes wide and shocked, his hands still on Carver's hips -- oh, but _his_ hips are moving, rising and thrusting as Carver sinks and rocks, both of them yielding to instinct since they don't know each other well enough yet for expertise.

     So there's no need for words when Cullen suddenly sits up, his expression fierce and his hands gone tight and his mouth full of need when he kisses Carver again.  Carver can feel what he wants, and he likes the idea, so he wraps his legs 'round Cullen and rolls back while Cullen rolls forward and now he's on his back with Cullen braced over him and yeah, fucking _yeah_ , Cullen's not thinking gentlemanly thoughts anymore.

     Carver loses himself on Cullen's cock just as he's already lost himself in Cullen's mouth.  That's what it feels like, falling apart, thoughts going silent and world narrowing down to the sounds of slapping flesh and broken rhythmic groans -- his own -- and soft barely-intelligible murmurs -- Cullen's -- and all that pulsing, churning heat down below.  When he comes he sort of spasms all over, flailing across the sheets and half-twisting his body sideways and making sounds for which there are no sexy words:  bleating, snuffling, stuttering.  It's sort of ludicrous and ugly, so later -- in the moment there is no thought -- he figures it's a good thing that Cullen can't hold back anymore and comes too.  Carver's too lost in his own orgasm to really see Cullen's, which is a shame, but he catches the tail end of it, and it's as beautiful as Carver is ugly.  Cullen's eyes are shut tight, and his lips have drawn back from his teeth, and he's shaking like a tree in an earthquake.  Like it hurts, or like he _wants_ to hurt.  Scary beautiful.  Scary _perfect_.

     "Fucking _Maker_ I love you," Carver blurts, as Cullen's eyes open and his shudders melt into swaying and heavy breaths.

     Cullen blinks twice, dazed.  But he focuses enough to withdraw carefully from Carver, and then to sit back on his knees with his head lolled back and his eyes shut, looking like spent sex on a plate.  So it's up to Carver to get up, chuckling at Cullen's complete dissolution, and go fetch a wet towel from the washstand.  He wipes them both down, throws the towel randomly across the room, and pushes Cullen over so he'll finally lie the fuck down.  Carver wants to cuddle.

     But Cullen's eyes have opened now, and he's watching Carver in a way that's... whoa.

     "I would have more," he says.

     Carver shivers all over.  " _Fuck_ , Cullen.  You're going to kill me."

     Cullen shifts closer, sitting up to kiss his shoulder.  "We need not hurry.  There is the whole night.  Rest if you like; I shall keep watch."  His fingers slide, slow and searching, down Carver's spine, and it's all there in that touch:  _watch, and think about how I mean to have you when you wake_.  Carver's married a monster; he laughs, giddily.

     But Cullen's right.  They do have all night.  So Carver closes his eyes and lets himself drift while Cullen studies him and nibbles here and there and gradually the nibbles become bites and the bites become slurping kisses and suddenly his cock is hardening in Cullen's mouth again and -- well.  The Maker smiles upon a fruitful marriage, the Chantry sisters say.  Carver coming three times in one night probably isn't the kind of fruit they had in mind, but oh well.  He relaxes and yields himself to fate.

#

     Five times, actually.  And it's almost dawn, and the fire's out, and half the bottle of oil is gone, and a servant's been in to bring them a meal -- Bran checking up, Carver figures -- before they're completely spent.  Cullen really wasn't kidding about wanting more. 

     But that's all right.  Because Carver wasn't kidding when he said _I love you_ , either. 

     So he sprawls boneless with Cullen's heavy arm across his middle, and he grins himself to sleep as his thoughts fade into silence, and at least for now, everything's fucking perfect.

**Author's Note:**

> Goddamn it, Tanukiham! This is all your fault. I thought I was *done* with Cullen/Carver. ::glowers::
> 
> Per her prompt: "Carver/Cullen arranged marriage fic where Cullen has to woo his surly fereldan farm boy with puppies. Maybe just the one puppy. Also, Cullen is the king, I don’t know. He’d be a lovely king. Carver can be prince consort. He sulks about the palace thinking about how this was supposed to be Bethany’s job and he’s no good at waving out of carriage windows. Cullen doesn’t ask him to consummate the marriage but is instead just Fucking Amazing. Until, you know, Carver can’t take the amazing, and fucks the crap out of the amazing."
> 
> And while I could have done this in silly fashion, of *course* my brain made a whole serious continuity out of it. It's actually quite a sad Origins game, in which Alistair was left the sole Warden standing after Ostagar, whereupon he fortunately met up with the Hawkes (along with Aveline and the other Origins companions) and was able to end the Blight, though at the cost of his own life since without the Warden there to make him, he wouldn't take Morrigan's offer. The Hawkes end up the vassals of Anora, in more ways than one. Meanwhile poor Cullen had to face the madness of Meredith alone -- which wasn't so bad, since without Hawke there, there was no idol to make her superhuman. The grateful nobles were like, "Fuck it, the Knight Commanders already run things here anyway, let's just make it official." The rest you can infer from the story.


End file.
